Circles
by Erin T. Aardvark
Summary: The strange sphere from "Hail to the Chief" resurfaces, and leads The Impossibles, and Big D, back to the strange abandoned city.
1. It's Baaaaack

_ AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yet another one of my (in)famous sequels, and another fanfic based on a computer game. This time, it's based on the game "Lost in the City: Post Scriptum." But my warped imagination takes over on quite a bit of it. In any case, The Impossibles and Big D belong to Hanna-Barbera. Anyone else you encounter (as well as the familial relationship between Fluid Man and Big D) belongs to me, though there are a couple of characters that belong to LITC:PS._

* * *

It was a routine day at the Secret Security Headquarters. Phyllis was at her typewriter, typing out some reports, when the door opened. It was Danalleah, and she was holding a box, looking a bit uncertain.

"Hi, Danalleah," Phyllis said. "What's the matter?"

"I don't know, exactly," Danalleah said. "We just got this box for the chief down in the mail room. I don't know who it's from, but I can sense vibrations from it."

"Vibrations?"

"It's a witch thing. Do you think you could give it to the chief for me?"

"Sure."

Phyllis understood why Danalleah didn't want to give it to Big D herself, and that was because Danalleah knew Big D wasn't too crazy about her, mostly because her mother was a convicted criminal.

In any case, Phyllis took the box, walked over to the chief's office door, and knocked.

"It's me, chief," she said. "Danalleah was just here, dropping off a package for you."

"Come in," Big D said. Phyllis opened the door, and walked in.

"She said she was feeling vibrations from it," she said, putting the package on the desk. "But I don't feel anything at all."

"I see," Big D said, taking a pair of scissors out of the desk drawer. "Probably her supernatural intuition. There's only one way to find out what's in here."

Big D stuck one edge of the scissors into the top of the box, in order to open it. Once he got it open, he took out what looked like a crystal ball. He put it on his desk and groaned.

"What's the matter, Big D?" Phyllis asked.

"Get Critch in here immediately," Big D said, sounding a bit agitated.

"Yes, sir," Phyllis said. She left the office, and immediately went across the hall to the agency's PA system.

"Attention, please," she said. "Would Danalleah Critch please report to Big D's office. Repeat, Danalleah Critch, report to Big D's office right away."

By this time, Danalleah was in the mail room, with Shawn, FG, and the Impossibles. They had been going through not only the agency's mail, but the singing Impossibles' fan mail.

"I wonder what the chief wants to see _me_ for?" Danalleah asked, nervously.

"It's probably nothing," Fluey said, shrugging. "You want me to go with you?"

"You don't mind, do you?"

"No, I don't mind."

Danalleah smiled, and she and Fluey went to the elevator. She always felt a little nervous whenever Big D called her into his office. The two of them reached the top floor of the building, and walked into Big D's outer office.

"Hiya, sis," Fluey said to Phyllis. "The chief said he wanted to see Dani, right?"

"Right," Phyllis said. "But what are you doing up here?"

"Moral support," Fluey said, shrugging.

"Right," Phyllis said. Then she pushed a button on her intercom. "Chief, Danalleah's here now."

"All right," Big D said. "Send her in."

"I find it fair to warn you two, he's not in a very good mood," Phyllis said.

"Is he ever?" Fluey asked.

Phyllis gave her brother a swat for that crack. Fluey just shrugged, and he and Danalleah went into Big D's office.

"You wanted to see me, chief?" Danalleah asked, and she started wringing her hands.

"I did," Big D said. He pushed the box toward her. "Look inside this box, if you please."

"It's just a crystal ball, chief," Fluey said, shrugging, as Danalleah took the ball out of the box.

"I know," Big D said, glaring at Danalleah. "Is this supposed to be your idea of a joke?"

"A joke?" Danalleah asked. "What do you mean?"

"This is exactly like the sphere I was given by the Russian Underground," Big D said.

"Ugh, chief, _please_, don't ever mention that name to me!" Fluey shouted. "I _still_ have nightmares over that one!"

"You and me both," Big D said.

"Honest, Big D," Danalleah said. "I wouldn't joke about something like that! Why would you think I would?"

"Your tricky witch mother, for one thing," Big D said, taking the crystal ball back. "That, and your claim to feel vibrations from it, considering that's what you said when I gave you the original sphere."

"But I told you, the vibrations can only be felt by the supernatural," Danalleah said.

"Think maybe you can put that thing away, chief?" Fluey asked, staring at the crystal ball. "I'm getting this uneasy feeling looking at it."

"Are you just saying that to protect your girlfriend?" Big D asked.

"No, Big D," Fluey said. "Seriously, that thing's making me nervous."

Big D knew Fluey had somewhat of an inner sense of danger, though it didn't always flare up. Big D sighed, and put the crystal ball back into the box.

"In any case, chief," Fluey went on, "why would Dani pull a practical joke like _that_ on you? Why would she pull _any_ kind of practical joke on you?"

"Yeah, that's Mother's style, not mine," Danalleah said. "In any case, you remember I was a nervous wreck during that incident."

"Yes, that's true," Big D said, somewhat thoughtfully.

"You think maybe someone from the RU sent it?" Fluey asked.

"I doubt it," Big D said. "The organization disbanded after their leader was murdered."

"Then who sent it?" Fluey asked.

"Obviously someone with a sick sense of humor," Big D said.

"Probably," Fluey said. "But I don't think it was fair to accuse Dani in the first place, chief."

"You're right, Fluid," Big D said. "I apologize, Ms. Critch."

"That's okay," Danalleah said. "I know Mother's reputation, and I know it doesn't make me look good in your book, Big D."

"You two may go, now," Big D said. "I need to do some thinking on this."

Fluey and Danalleah nodded, and left the office. Big D took the crystal ball back out of the box, and looked at it. He was about to throw it into the trashcan, when it began to glow, and something began to move inside of it. Big D stared at it, and saw words being formed.

_You can't run from your future_

Almost immediately after reading it, the message disappeared, and the ball stopped glowing. Big D just stared at it for a moment or so. Then he shook his head to regain his composure, opened his wall safe, and stuck the ball inside.

"There's no possible way," he said to himself. "It's just _not_ possible for that sphere to have regenerated itself. It's just _not_ possible!"


	2. Telephone Tag

Elsewhere in the city, there were a group of soldiers discussing the Russian Underground, and when they were last sighted in the city of Megatropolis. Their names were Col. Garland, Lieutenant Reubenstein, and Sergeant Buckley.

"I know the Russian Underground disbanded after that incident regarding them and the Secret Security Headquarters," Col. Garland said. "But there's one thing that's been on my mind since then."

"What's that, colonel?" Lt. Reubenstein asked.

"That sphere," Col. Garland said. "I mean, we've gotten word about what they were after, and why they were after it, but I want to know _why_ they were after it."

"You said you knew why," Sgt. Buckley said. "They wanted it to take over the world. Why else do you want to know why they were after it?"

"How could they use a simple hunk of glass for world domination?" the colonel asked. "That makes no sense to me whatsoever."

"So, what do you suggest we do about it, colonel?" . Reubenstein said. "The leader of the Russian Underground is dead, and none of his henchmen are talking. I don't think they know."

"Then we'll just have to figure out who _would_ know," Col. Garland said. Other than the chief of the Secret Security Headquarters, that is. No way we'll get him to spill. We'll snoop around into this, and see what we can dig up."

The colonel dismissed the two officers, and they left, going in their own separate directions. Once he was out of sight and hearing range of his superior officers, Sgt. Buckley ran to a nearby pay phone, stuck a couple of coins in, and dialed a number.

"Hello, Head Honcho?" he said, once he got a connection. "This is Blue Buzzard."

"Yes, Blue Buzzard," Head Honcho said. "What have you found out?"

"The colonel is looking for information about the sphere the Russian Underground was after," Sgt. Buckley said. "He's smart enough not to ask the chief of the SSHQ about it."

"Yes, they won't get anywhere questioning him."

"I think maybe this would be a job for either Scarlet or Condor. Or even both of them."

"Agreed. I'll get in touch with both Scarlet and Condor and let them know. You can contact them directly if you find out any leads."

"Yes sir. Blue Buzzard out."

And with that, Sgt. Buckley hung up the phone, and went down a hallway, in order to dig up any information he could for the colonel. After all, he didn't want to blow his cover.

Big D returned home that evening, his mind still on the sphere he received. He had left it in his wall safe at HQ for the time being. He didn't know what else to do with it.

"Hi, chief," Fluey called out. He was laying on the couch in the living room, tuning his guitar. "Anything come up about that sphere?"

"Nothing," Big D said. "I still think it's someone's idea of a practical joke."

"Well, don't look at me. I may be a wise-guy, but even I know better than to play a joke like _this_ on you! After all, I don't want to get grounded!"

"I fail to see the humor in this situation, Fluid."

"Just trying to lighten the mood a little. In any case, boss, are you _sure_ it's a practical joke? Just looking at that thing gives me the creeps. Deja vu, you know?"

Big D said nothing, and walked down the hall, into the kitchen. Phyllis was in there, cooking dinner.

"Hi," she said. "Fluey told me what was in the package you got today. Any idea who sent it?"

"Not one," Big D said. "I think it's a practical joke, but your brother seems to think differently."

"How do you mean?"

"Not only did Critch feel these 'vibrations' from handling it, Fluid said it was giving him 'the creeps.' You know his intuition."

Phyllis nodded, and went back to the stove. Big D was about to go into his study to ponder the sphere a little more when the phone rang. Big D sighed, and picked it up.

"Hello?" he asked.

"This Big D?" the person on the other end asked. "Chief of the Secret Security Headquarters?"

"Who is this?" Big D asked.

"Nobody you need to know. At least not right now. I just need to know if I got the right person or not."

"And just how did you get this number?"

"I have my ways. Is this Big D, or not?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Look, I just have one question for you, chief. Do you value your grandson's life?"

That caught Big D off guard, and he nearly dropped the phone. He composed himself quickly.

"What kind of a question is _that_?!" he shouted.

"Do you value your grandson's life?" the caller asked again.

"Yes, of course I do," Big D said.

"Good, then you'll everything I tell you to do."

"And why should I do that?"

"If you value your grandson's life like you said, you will. I can't talk anymore now. I'll be in touch with you later. And tell no one about this call!"

Before Big D could say anything more, the connection went dead. The chief put it back on the hook, wondering who in the world that person was.

"Who was on the phone, Big D?" Phyllis asked.

"Phone solicitor," Big D said. "You know they always call around this time of the evening."

"What were they selling this time?"

"Insurance."

Saying nothing more, Big D walked into his study, and closed the door behind him. Phyllis just stared at him oddly, not knowing what to think. But she decided not to dwell on it. She just shrugged, and went back to the stove.

The next morning on the military base, Lt. Reubenstein and Sgt. Buckley went into Col. Garland's office.

"We've gotten some information about the Russian Underground case, sir," Lt. Reubenstein said, giving the colonel a file. "Mostly on people who were involved in the case."

"What have you got?" Col. Garland asked, as he opened the folder.

"First off, we've got the chief of the Secret Security Headquarters," Sgt. Buckley said. "But we've already established the fact that questioning him is going to be a waste of time. He's a tough nut to crack."

"Then we found out one of the agency's men, Arnold Benedict, was also involved," Lt. Reubenstein said. "As well as an assassin the RU had hired. We only know him by his nickname, Tracker. Both of them are dead."

"We also found out two women were involved," Sgt. Buckley said. "Natasha Veretennikov, alias Natasha Glamorski, and Narnia Wilkins Veretennikov. Natasha was the sister of Vladimir Veretennikov, a member of the Russian Underground, and Narnia was married to him. He was the one who stole the sphere in the first place, and then he brought to the SSHQ. He was murdered shortly after that. We haven't been able to locate either woman, sir."

"I see," the colonel said, looking through the information. "Wait a minute here, I know this kid. He's a member of this rock group my niece likes."

"That's Franklin McAlister," Sgt. Buckley said. "Age sixteen, member of the singing group, the Impossibles."

"Yeah, that's it, that's the group," Col. Garland said. "What's his information doing in this case file?"

"Apparently, when the RU attacked the SSHQ building, they took this kid hostage," Lt. Reubenstein said.

"According to the files on the case, nobody knows why the RU kidnapped him," Sgt. Buckley said. "When he was recovered, he refused to talk about the incident."

"Do you think maybe the kid was targeted specifically, sir?" Lt. Reubenstein asked. "After all, the RU didn't take any other hostages, and in an attack like the one the RU pulled on the SSHQ, you'd think there would be more."

"I agree," Col. Garland said. "Do we know the whereabouts of this McAlister kid?"

"Depending on whether or not the Impossibles are on a concert tour," Sgt. Buckley said, "his current address is in Megatropolis."

"Good," Col. Garland said. "Then we'll bring him in for questioning. He should know what we want to know. You two are dismissed."

Lt. Reubenstein and Sgt. Buckley left the office, but once again, the sergeant went to a nearby pay phone, and called someone.

"Condor, this is Blue Buzzard," he said. "I've got some more info."

"What's the info, Buzz?" Condor asked.

"The colonel wants us to bring in the kid that was involved in the RU case for questioning, you know, the one from that rock group, the Impossibles?"

"Oh yeah, him. The operation'll blow up in our faces if that kid spills."

"What do you think we ought to do, Condor?"

"We'll have to get that kid before anyone else can."


	3. The Mysterious Miss Condor

The next morning started just like any other in Megatropolis. The minute he walked into his office, he noticed something glowing behind a picture on the wall, the picture that hid his safe. He sighed, and opened the safe to check on this. Sure enough, there was the sphere, glowing like the Times Square New Year's Eve ball. Words began to form in it again.

_You need to return to guard the future._

"Hmph," the chief grumbled, as the words disappeared. The sphere stopped glowing, and Big D put it back in his safe. He had a lot of work to do, and he didn't want to worry about that sphere at this time. As he sorted through the paperwork, his intercom buzzed.

"Yes, Phyllis?" he asked.

"Someone on line two," Phyllis said. "Except she won't tell me who she is."

"Tell her unless she identifies herself, I'm afraid I won't be able to take her call."

"I already told her that, but she insists. I can't talk her out of it. She said she'll only speak to you, and she won't hang up until she does."

"All right, then, put it through."

Big D sighed, and pushed a button on his phone in order to take the call.

"Big D here," he said.

"I told you I'd be in touch with more information," the unidentified caller said.

"Yes, I know," Big D said. "Listen, miss, if you're going to continue this, I have to know what I can call you."

"All right. For now, just call me Condor."

"Condor, eh? Very well, Miss Condor. What have you to relay to me today?"

"Have you received any strange messages lately? Ones talking about guarding the future and like that?"

"Why? Are you the one that sent them?"

"No, I'm not."

"Then how do you . . . . ."

"I got the same message. Or at least a similar one. Listen, I gotta make this quick. There's this soldier, Col. Garland, interested in the RU. He wants to know about the sphere. He knows you know about it, but he's not going to bother with you."

"If he's not going to bother with me, then why are you . . . . ."

"He found out your grandson knows about it as well. Don't worry, they don't know that he _is_ your grandson."

"Just how do _you_ know, anyway?"

"I can't tell you. All I _can_ tell you is to keep an eye on him. He could be in for a _lot_ of trouble if Garland gets his hands on him."

"What do you mean?"

"He has ways of making his subjects talk. We're talking Spanish Inquisition here."

"I see. But why are you telling me all this?"

"Because you, your grandson, my associate, and I are all in the same boat right about now. Just do what I say, and everything will be just fine. Just don't tell anyone about these calls."

"Wait a minute . . . . ."

Once again, before Big D could say anything else, Condor had hung up. The chief sighed, and pushed the intercom button on his desk.

"Phyllis," he said.

"Yes, chief?" Phyllis asked.

"Get me any information you can on someone named Col. Garland, right away."

"Yes, sir."

Once Big D closed that connection, he began tuning his wrist communicator.

In a small club located just outside Megatropolis, the Impossibles were rehearsing for a gig they had later that night. Multi's puppy, Skittles, was sitting on the stage, thumping her tail in time to the music. They were interrupted by Fluey's wrist communicator going off.

"Weird to hear the signal coming from your communicator, Fluey," Multi commented.

"Yeah, it's usually on the guitar," Coiley said.

"It's probably Dani," Fluey said, shrugging, and he pushed the button that activated the TV screen. "Fluid Man here."

"Fluid, it's me," Big D said.

"Oh, hey, chief, what are you doing calling on this line? You usually call on the guitar if you've got an assignment for us. So what's the caper?"

"Nothing. At least nothing as of yet. I'm not calling about an assignment. I'm calling to check in."

"Check in? How come? Everything's fine with me. Coiley, Multi, and I are just rehearsing for a gig, that's all."

"I've been thinking about your reaction to that sphere I received yesterday. I wanted to know if you've been having any other . . . . strange feelings."

"Only when I'm near that thing."

"I see. Listen, something may be going on regarding the Russian Underground incident, and I want you to be careful."

"Yeah, sure, boss. But what's going on, anyway?"

"I'm not sure, exactly, just promise me you'll be extremely careful."

"Okay, chief, I promise."

And with that, the transmission ended. Fluey sighed, shook his head, and went back to his guitar.

"What was that about?" Multi asked.

"Oh, Big D was just doing the parent bit," Fluey said. "He thinks something's going on with the Russian Underground case awhile back."

"Yeah, I remember that," Coiley said with a grimace. "Every time I think about it, my shoulder starts to hurt!"

Multi could definitely sympathize with Coiley there. He took a bullet to the leg during the attack on the HQ building while Coiley had taken one to the shoulder. Multi also remembered the Russian Underground had shot Skittles as well, and left her in super-critical condition. Upon thinking about that, Multi put down his guitar, and picked up his puppy, stroking her.

"Come on, gang, let's get back to rehearsal before the chief calls with an assignment," Fluey said.

The other two Impossibles agreed, and continued their rehearsing.

Back at the SSHQ, Big D had taken the sphere out of his safe again, and was pondering over who sent it, as well as trying to figure out who this "Condor" woman was. It wasn't making any sense to him, unless it was a practical joke. As he was thinking, his intercom buzzed.

"Chief?" Phyllis asked. "I'm finished with the Col. Garland research."

"Excellent," Big D said. "What did you find out?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? What do you mean nothing?"

"I mean _nothing_. I couldn't find any information on him, and you know our computers. They have information on _any_body!"

"Did you just check the computers?"

"No, I called around, as well. The military doesn't have any record of a Col. Garland. In fact, they don't have a record of _anyone_ named Garland!"

"What about the air force?"

"Same as the military. No record of anyone named Garland. Past or present."

"I see."

"Do you want me to keep looking? Maybe I overlooked something."

"Yes. I want you to do something else for me."

"What's that, chief?"

"I want you to go out to that club the boys are performing in tonight, and keep an eye on your brother."

"Yeah, sure . . . . . but how come?"

"Just as a favor to me, that's all."

"Okay, I guess . . . . ."

Big D ended the conversation then and there, and went back to the sphere, and practically waiting for Condor to call him back with more instructions.

That evening, Phyllis and her current boyfriend, Mike Rogers (the chief mechanic of the SSHQ) went out to the club to see the Impossibles perform.

"I don't get why the chief asked you to do somethin' like this," Mike said, as he and Phyllis sat down at a table toward the back of the venue. "I mean, what, are you suddenly your brother's keeper or somethin'?"

"Well, ever since he got that sphere thing, he's been a little on edge," Phyllis said, shrugging. "But don't tell the boys why we're here, Mike. As far as they're concerned, we're only here to catch the show, right?"

"Right."

The lights went down, and the stage curtain opened. The Impossibles immediately went into their act, and were met by loud applause with each number they played. When they took a break, they noticed Mike and Phyllis in the audience, and walked over to their table.

"Hey, what are you guys doing here?" Multi asked, as Skittles barked happily, and jumped into Phyllis's lap.

"We were tired of doin' the same ol' same ol' on a date," Mike said. "So we decided to come here and catch your show."

"Big D put you up to this, didn't he?" Fluey asked.

"How'd you know?" Phyllis asked.

"He called earlier and told me something's going on about that Russian Underground thing," Fluey said. "And, I just got the sudden feeling he may be right. Look at the table across the room."

The group looked to where Fluey was pointing. There at the table in question were two young women. One was wearing a pink skirt suit with faux fur trim, black high-heeled calf-length boots, and had brown hair in a Jackie Onassis type hairstyle (not to mention a body that wouldn't quit). The other had short, dark hair and was wearing army fatigues and combat boots.

"I think we ran across those two during the RU incident," Fluey said. "And I don't like how that army chick is looking at me."

"I don't, either," Multi said.

"Look, fellas, I have an idea," Phyllis said. "Act like nothing's wrong, and finish the gig. I remember the woman in the pink, and she didn't seem like trouble to me."

"Me neither," Mike said, shrugging. "I mean, how bad can she be? 'Specially with a body like that, she's gotta be at least a ten on the . . . . . ow!"

Phyllis punched Mike in the shoulder as hard as she possibly could before he could finish his sentence. The boys stifled their laughter, and went back on the stage to finish their set. While they were playing, they paid absolutely no attention to the two women, but Mike and Phyllis kept their eyes on them, as did Skittles.

"What do you think, girl?" Mike asked, scratching the puppy behind the ears. Skittles looked at the two women, and barked.

"She seems to think they're okay," Phyllis said.

"Yeah, 'specially the one in pink," Mike said. "Get a load of those legs!"

"Put your eyeballs back in your head and stop drooling!" Phyllis hissed, giving Mike another punch in the shoulder.

"Watch it, I need that arm later," Mike said.

Once the boys finished their gig, the house lights came on, and the woman wearing the army fatigues stood up, and tapped her friend on the shoulder. She motioned toward the door with her head, and the two of them left, leaving the money for their tab on the table.

"Where are they going?" Phyllis asked.

"Want me to go find out?" Mike asked.

"Yeah, I think that might be a . . . . ."

Before she finished that sentence, she realized what she had just said, but by that time, Mike was already out the door of the club. Phyllis growled, and followed after him. He was just a bit _too_ enthusiastic about the woman in pink, in her opinion.

"Wonder where Pinky Lee and Army Chick went?" Fluey asked, as he looked over at their empty table.

"Beats me," Coiley said. "Wherever they went, looks like Mike and Phyllis went to follow them."

"Or Mike went to follow them, and Phyllis went to follow Mike," Multi said.

"How much you guys wanna bet Mike comes to work tomorrow with a black eye and a fat lip?" Fluey asked.

The boys laughed over that one as they began putting their guitars inside their cases. As they were doing that, two men in army uniforms approached them.

"Pardon us," one said. "But is one of you Franklin McAlister?"

"Yeah, that's me," Fluey said. "Why?"

"I'm Col. Garland, and this is Lt. Reubenstein," the man said, holding out his badge. You're going to have to come with us."

"What for?" Fluey asked.

"We have some questions to ask you," Col. Garland said. "Privately. So if you'll just come with us, please."

"Yeah, okay, I guess," Fluey said, and he followed the two army men out of the club. Multi and Coiley started to go after them, but Lt. Reubenstein stopped them.

"Sorry, boys," he said. "But we need to speak with your friend, privately."

"What about?" Coiley asked.

"Confidential information," Lt. Reubenstein said. "Nothing that concerns the two of you. Now beat it, you kids bother me."

Multi and Coiley backed off. They didn't like it, but there wasn't much they could do about it. Or so the lieutenant and the colonel thought. Multi and Coiley waited, and followed Lt. Reubenstein outside, making sure they were a far enough distance away so they wouldn't be noticed. They saw Col. Garland talking to Fluey, as they approached a black car. The colonel looked around for a moment, then opened the car door, and got in. Fluey was about to go back to the club, when Col. Garland grabbed his arm, and forced him into the car. The minute he was inside, the car door slammed shut, and the car took off down the street.

"Let's go!" Multi shouted, and he and Coiley were about to head for the Impossi-Mobile, but before they could get anywhere, they were suddenly grabbed from behind, and a couple of chloroform soaked rags were pressed against their faces, and the two Impossibles were soon rendered unconscious. Once out for the count, their assailants dropped them to the ground, and left them there.


	4. Infiltration

"Looks like they're coming out of it."

"Coiley, Multi, can you hear me?"

Coiley and Multi groaned, and began sitting up. They were a bit dizzy and disoriented, and they had a couple of killer headaches.

"Are you guys all right?" Phyllis asked, as Skittles whined a little, nudging her redheaded master with her nose.

"Yeah, I think so," Muti groaned, rubbing the side of his head. "What hit us?"

"That's what we'd like to know," Coiley said. "What happened?"

"We don't know, we just got back here a few minutes ago," Phyllis said.

"Yeah, we lost Pinky Lee and G.I. Jane," Mike shrugged. "We decided to come back here, and we found you guys sprawled out like that on the pavement."

"Mike, what happened to you?" Multi asked, as he just noticed Mike was sporting a black eye, and a fat lip. "Did Pinky Lee or G.I. Jane give you that?"

"No, actually, it was Sugar Ray Dawson over here," Mike said, thrusting his thumb toward Phyllis. "She got a little mad 'cause I was . . . . . uhhh . . . . _observin'_ Pinky Lee."

"Ogling is more like it," Phyllis mumbled.

"Looks like we owe Fluey five bucks," Multi said. "He said you'd come in to HQ tomorrow with a black eye and a fat lip."

"Yeah, speakin' of Fluey, where is he?" Mike asked.

"Hollerin' hi-fi's!" Coiley shouted. "I nearly forgot about that!"

"What happened?" Phyllis asked, nervously.

"We were packing our stuff up after the gig," Multi said, "and these two military men came up to us. They said their names were Col. Garland and Lt. Reubenstein, and that they had to talk to Fluey, privately."

"Fluey went outside with them, and we followed, at a distance," Coiley said. "The colonel got into this black car, and then he grabbed Fluey and forced him inside."

"We were about to go after it when someone grabbed us from behind," Multi said. "I remember someone pressing a rag against my face . . . . then everything's blank."

"Yeah, same here," Coiley said.

"Whoever grabbed you must've used chloroform to knock you out," Phyllis said. "And they probably did it to keep you from following that colonel."

"But who is he, and what could he want with Fluey?" Coiley asked.

"We'd better notify Big D," Multi said.

The others agreed, and raced to the Impossi-Mobile. Coiley activated the on-board communication system, and informed Big D what was going on.

"Do you know if Fluid has his communicator?" Big D asked.

"We didn't see it around," Coiley said.

"Good," Big D said. "I want you to start tracking it immediately."

"Right, chief!" Coiley shouted, saluting. "Over and out."

"Well, you heard the man," Mike said. "Let's get trackin'!"

And with that, Coiley tuned the Impossi-Mobile's trackers to Fluey's wrist communicator's coordinates. All they had to do now was follow the signal.

It was about daybreak when the black car stopped at what looked like an old military base. Col. Garland exited the car first, followed by Lt. Reubenstein and Sgt. Burkley. The two of them pulled Fluey out of the car, and started dragging him toward the entrance of the building by the arms. Fluey struggled and dug his heels into the ground. He wasn't able to reach the button on his wrist communicator that would allow him to convert into his superhero mode, so until he could, he was going to put up one heck of a fight.

"Come on, kid!" Lt. Reubenstein shouted. "Get moving!"

"No!" Fluey shouted, trying in vain to yank his arm out of the soldier's grip. "Let go of me, or you'll be sorry!"

"Shut up, and move it!" the lieutenant snapped. "Or else _you're_ the one who's gonna be sorry!"

"Better do as he says, son," Sgt. Burkley said. "It'll go a lot easier on you."

Fluey just glared at Sgt. Burkley and continued to struggle. It wasn't easy, but the two soldiers managed to get Fluey into the building. They dragged him down a long hallway, and into a small room. Once inside, they practically threw him into a chair.

"We can do this one of two ways, son," Col. Garland said. "The easy way or the hard way. The easy way is you tell us everything we want to know. And I suggest you go with the easy way, because going the hard way isn't gonna be pretty."

"Neither am I when I get mad," Fluey said, glaring at the colonel. "What do you want with me, anyway?"

"A little information. We've been researching a little incident between two organizations, known as the Secret Security Headquarters and the Russian Underground. We found out you happened to be involved in that incident."

"So what if I was?"

"On the initial attack on the SSHQ building by the Russian Underground, they took you prisoner, correct?"

"So?"

"Why did they take you, and you alone? And how come they didn't take any of the agents?"

Fluey thought this one over for a moment. He had promised himself he'd never tell anyone outside of the agency that his grandfather was the chief of the SSHQ. That was why he had been targeted by the Russian Underground. An agent, Arnold Benedict, had informed the RU of that little family secret, since the RU knew the chief had the sphere they were after. Also, Fluey couldn't tell these guys that he _was_ an agent of the SSHQ. But he knew he had to answer.

"How am I supposed to know?!" he shouted. "Why do any criminal organizations take hostages? It was probably just a random grab!"

"Really," Col. Garland said. "And just what _were_ you doing at the SSHQ building in the first place?"

"We were hired for a gig," Fluey said.

"I see. Tell me then, what do you know about the sphere?"

"What sphere?"

"I think you know what sphere."

Fluey _did_ know, of course. But he had to play dumb. As far as he was concerned, the "Russian Underground Incident" was highly confidential information, and he intended to keep it that way!

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"Don't play dumb with _me_, sonny!" Col. Garland shouted. "You're hiding something, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not," Fluey said, calmly.

"I know you are. Why else would an organization go out of their way just to kidnap a teenage rock singer?"

"I don't know, you tell me, because that's exactly what _you_ guys just did!"

Col. Garland uttered a curse under his breath, and started pacing the room. Fluey just sat there, waiting to see what the colonel was going to do next. The colonel then mentally counted to ten, and took a deep breath.

"Listen, son," he said, as calmly as he could. "We looked at the case, and we know you were involved."

"Then you also know I'm not talking about it," Fluey said. "I didn't talk to the press about it then, and I'm certainly not talking to you guys about it now!"

"We just want to know about the sphere. What is it, and why was the Russian Underground so intent on getting their hands on it?"

"I told you already, I'm not talking!"

Fluey stood up, and walked for the door. Before he could reach it, Lt. Reubenstein grabbed him by the arms, and brought him back over to the chair.

"Make it easy on yourself, Franklin," Col. Garland said. "Just tell us what we want to know, and then we'll take you home."

"I told you before," Fluey said. "I'm not talking!"

Fluey tried to stand up, but Lt. Reubenstein grabbed him by his shoulders, and forced him back down.

"Maybe our little friend needs some time to think about it," the colonel said. "Maybe after he's had a chance to calm down, he'll talk."

"Fat chance of that happening, buster!" Fluey shouted.

Col. Garland glared at Fluey, and nodded toward Lt. Reubenstein and Sgt. Buckley. The two soldiers then started tying Fluey's wrists to the armrests of the chair, as tightly as they possibly could.

"We'll leave you alone to think about it," Colonel Garland said. "And when we come back, maybe you'll be a little more cooperative."

And with that, the three soldiers left their interrogation room, locking the door behind them. Fluey glared after them, and tested the ropes. They were tied so tightly, he knew he wouldn't be able to break loose without them cutting into his skin. He wouldn't be able to move the chair, either. It was bolted to the floor. At least he still had his wrist communicator. All the others had to do was track him down. He just hoped he wouldn't crack under pressure and spill the beans about that sphere.

Once the three soldiers had left the interrogation room, Sgt. Buckley immediately separated from his superiors and ran directly to the pay phone.

"Condor, this is Blue Buzzard," he said. "Where were you last night?"

"Scarlet and I had a little trouble," Condor said.

"Well, just so you know, Garland got to the kid before you and Scarlet could."

"Yeah, I figured that. So what's going on?"

"Well, he's not being very cooperative. He refuses to talk."

"Good. Make sure the colonel doesn't blow a gasket trying to get him to spill. And make sure the kid doesn't talk, either. What's your location?"

"The old, abandoned Camp Lincoln base."

"Okay. It is now, oh-nine-hundred. I'll get Silver Fox and Hush-Puppy, and we'll helicopter in. We should be there in between ten hundred and twelve hundred."

"Gotcha. I'll see you then."

Sgt. Buckley hung up the phone. All he had to do now was wait.

A couple of hours went by, and Col. Garland decided to have another go at questioning Fluey. Once he, Lt. Reubenstein, and Sgt. Buckley entered the interrogation room, Fluey looked over at them, and glared.

"Now then, since we've had some time to think it over," Col. Garland said, "are we going to be a little more cooperative?"

"Not on your life," Fluey said, struggling a bit. He knew this wasn't necessarily a good idea, considering the ropes would start cutting into his wrists if he kept this up, but he just didn't want to sit there and do _nothing_, after all.

"Look son," Col. Garland said, trying to remain patient. "You know and I know that we are _not_ going to get anywhere this way. So you might as well stop being difficult and tell me everything you know about that sphere!"

"No!" Fluey shouted. "I refuse! Why do you want to know about a stupid hunk of glass, anyway? How do I know you're _really_ from the military? You guys might be a bunch of con artists for all I know!"

Col. Garland's face began to grow red by this point. He could no longer keep his cool. It was at that point when Sgt. Burkley snuck out of the room. The colonel didn't even notice.

"Listen here, you stubborn little brat!" he shouted, right in Fluey's face. "You either tell me what you know right now, or you're going to be subjected to some very unpleasant experiences! Sleep deprivation. Starvation. Waterboarding. How does that sound to you, boy?"

Fluey gulped. Col. Garland snickered. He had the dark-haired Impossible right where he wanted him.

"I'm giving you one last chance, little man," he said. "Are you going to tell me everything you know, or not?"

Fluey had to think fast. There was no way out of this one, unless he told the colonel everything he knew about that sphere. But before he could say anything, a couple of small pills dropped from the vent in the ceiling. Thick gas was suddenly released from them once they hit the floor.

"What the heck is _that_?!" Col. Garland shouted.

"I don't know!" Lt. Reubenstein shouted. "We'd better get out of here before we smother!"

Unfortunately, they didn't get anywhere fast. The gas was too thick, and too heavy. Fluey began struggling desperately to get loose, but all he managed to do was push his wrist communicator off his arm, and onto the floor. He didn't notice, though. He lapsed into unconsciousness soon afterward. The door was kicked open then, and in came three people in army fatigues and gas masks, one of them being a woman. She took a thick cloth out of her ammo belt, and tied it over Fluey's nose and mouth. Then she pulled a knife out of her belt, and cut the ropes binding his wrists. Then she slug him over his shoulder, and headed out.

"Okay, troops!" she shouted to the other two men that came in with her. "We got what we came for! Let's move out!"


	5. Questions and Answers

Multi, Coiley, Mike, Phyllis, and Skittles finally reached the old abandoned army base, and ran inside, using Mike's communicator (hidden in a cigarette lighter) to track the signal from Fluey's communicator.

"Right in here," Mike said, pointing to the door of the interrogation room. The group slowly went inside, and looked around. By this time, the gas had cleared out, but Col. Garland and Lt. Reubenstein were sprawled out on the floor unconscious.

"What happened to them?" Phyllis asked.

"Someone probably knocked them out," Multi said, and he and Coiley walked over to the colonel. Skittles began sniffing around the room.

"Holy horrific!" Coiley shouted, suddenly. "Someone knocked them out all right, permanently!"

"What?!" Phyllis shouted. She ran over to the colonel, and put her fingers against his neck. After a moment, she did the same to Lt. Reubenstein.

"You're right," she said, grimly. "They're dead."

"But how?" Multi asked. "It doesn't look like they've been shot or stabbed, or bludgeoned. or anything like that."

Skittles suddenly barked, and went into her pointer routine (_poing!_) Multi ran over to see what she was pointing at. There was some kind of strange powder on the floor, and two pieces of a broken capsule.

"Hey, guys, look at this!" he called to the others. "What do you make of it?"

"I'm not sure," Phyllis said, pulling a handkerchief out of her purse. She wiped some of the powder off the floor, and carefully picked up the capsule pieces. "We'll have to give it to the lab."

"Wait a minute!" Coiley shouted. "Fluey's wrist communicator!"

"But where's Fluey?" Phyllis asked.

"Only one way to find out," Multi said, then he turned to his super-charged pup. "Okay girl, you know what to do."

Skittles stood up on her hind legs, barked, and took off like a shot. She zipped through every room of the building, and returned to her friends. She whimpered and shook her head.

"I guess that means he's not here," Multi said, picking up his puppy.

"What do we do now?" Coiley asked.

"I guess we go back to HQ," Phyllis said, shrugging. "I mean, I don't think there's anything we _can_ do right now. We won't be able to track Fluey if he's not wearing his communicator, and I want to see what this powder is. Maybe it'll give us a clue to where Fluey is."

The others agreed, and headed out to the Impossi-Mobile. Multi informed Big D of what happened on the Impossi-Mobile's console.

"We're heading back to HQ now with some kind of powder and capsule pieces we found on the floor," Multi said. "Phyllis wants the lab to look at it."

"Very strange," Big D said. "I'll meet you in the laboratory. I'd like to look into this myself."

"Check, chief."

Once Multi signed off, he converted the car to Impossi-Jet, and took off as fast as he could. Our heroes reached HQ in record time, and raced to the labs. Big D, and the head of the SSHQ's science devision, Dr. Reginald "Reggie" Johnson, were waiting for them.

"Here's the sample, Reggie," Phyllis said, handing Reggie her handkerchief.

"I'll look into this immediately," Reggie said. "The chief tells me you guys found two soldiers there, and they were dead when you got there."

"Right," Coiley said. "And they were the same two soldiers that approached us at the club last night."

"How long will it take you to analyze that, Johnson?" Big D asked.

"Hopefully not _too_ long," Reggie said, as he started walking back into the lab. "You can't calculate exactly how long the process is going to take, chief."

Big D nodded, and sat down in a nearby chair. Phyllis sat down next to him. Skittles whined, and jumped into Phyllis's lap for some cuddle therapy.

It wasn't until about forty-five minutes later, Reggie emerged from the lab, and he looked nervous. Immediately, Big D and Phyllis stood up, and Phyllis gripped Skittles a little tighter.

"What's the matter, Johnson?" Big D asked.

"That powder was residue from a lethal dose of some kind of gas," Reggie said. "We found traces of chlorine, hydrogen chloride, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanide, and phosgene. There was some other chemicals in there, a lot of which were used during World War One. In this powder form, it's harmless, but when it's in it's gas form . . . . . whoa boy . . . . ."

"Those two soldiers must have asphyxiated," Multi said.

"But who could have thrown a gas bomb in there?" Coiley asked.

"I'm sure I don't know," Big D sighed. "I don't even know where to start looking. Remain on stand by status for the moment, boys. I need to do some thinking."

Big D went back up to his office. After thinking over the situation a bit, he took the sphere from the safe, and stared at it, like he had been doing. He wondered if the sphere had anything to do with this mess. As he stared, more words formed inside of it.

_Return to the city. You have to guard the future._

"I wish I could figure this out," he sighed. "As far as I know, the sphere was destroyed. I don't see how in the world it could regenerate itself . . . . ."

"Chief?" Phyllis's voice came over the intercom.

"Yes, Phyllis, what is it?" Big D asked.

"There's a lady named Condor on line two," Phyllis said. "She says she needs to talk to you."

"All right, put it through," Big D sighed, putting the sphere down. Then he pushed the corresponding button on the phone.

"Big D here," he said.

"It's me again," Condor said.

"So I heard. Would you be so kind as to make this brief, Ms. Condor? I'm having a bit of a personal crisis going on."

"Yeah, I already know. I'm calling to tell you not to worry about your grandson. I'm in the process of transferring him somewhere safe. My partner, Scarlet, is taking care of those details."

"He's with you, then? Let me speak with him."

"Can't. He breathed in just a _little_ too much gas we had to drop on the old Camp Lincoln place. Don't worry, he didn't breathe in enough to kill him. I had the doctors at my organization's headquarters look him over the minute we got him there. He'll be fine, he's just gonna be a little sick for a couple of days, that's all."

"So I assume you're responsible for the deaths of those two soldiers?"

"Soldiers my foot. Col. Garland was as much a colonel as Tom Parker was. He was working for a criminal organization that my agency had been after. They wanted to know everything about the sphere the Russian Underground was after, and they wanted to use it for world domination. Speaking of which, do you have it?"

"The sphere? It had been destroyed."

"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? Just tell me if you have it!"

"I received _a_ sphere. I can't tell you if it's exactly _the_ sphere."

"Okay, good. This is what I want you to do next. Nothing. If you have an APB out on your grandson, cancel it. All you need to know now is that he's going to be fine, and he's being looked after. I know your granddaughter and the kid's friends are gonna want to know, so you just tell them that an informant told you."

"How do I know I can trust you?"

"If you want to see your grandson again, you're going to _have_ to trust me. Just wait for the next time I contact you. Go about your daily business until then."

Once again, the call was disconnected before Big D could respond. He put the receiver back on the cradle and let out a frustrated groan. This Condor lady was driving him absolutely crazy. But, he went along with it. It was about all he _could_ do for right now. Since Col. Garland and Lt. Reubenstein were out of the picture, he had no way of knowing if Fluey really _was_ all right or not.

It wasn't until the end of the week until Big D heard from Condor again. But it wasn't a phone call this time. Big D was going through some paperwork when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," he said.

"Hi, chief," Danalleah said, walking into the room.

"What is it, Ms. Critch?" Big D said, not bothering to look up.

"This just came into the mail room for you. There's no return address on it, and I thought I should bring it up right away. It may be a clue to where Fluey is right now."

"Thank you, Ms. Critch. If you don't mind, I'd like a little privacy while I look into this."

"Yes sir."

Danalleah handed Big D the envelope, and then left. Big D looked at it intently. The envelope just had his code name, and the building's address on it, but that was about it. And it looked like an extremely old typewriter had been used to write it. Big D opened the letter (which was also typed in that old typewriter style), and read through it:

_Big D, here are your latest instructions. I want you to bring the sphere to Megatropolis International Airport at 1200 p.m. tomorrow. Enclosed is a ticket for flight 529 to Russia. You will be accompanying me there. My partner and your grandson are already in Russia. You'll see him when we arrive at our final destination. You will notice your ticket is under the name Gregory Wilkins. This will be your code name until we reach Moscow. Make sure you bring the sphere, and come alone. Condor_

Once Big D read through the letter, he thought about his options. He had no idea why Condor was sending him to Russia, but he sure wasn't going to go out to Megatropolis International Airport alone. He had gone out alone to search for information about the sphere when he first had to deal with it, and he wasn't about to make the same mistake again. He began tuning his desk console.

"Impossibles here," Coiley said, once Big D reached his guitar.

"Boys, I want you to meet me at Megatropolis International Airport," Big D said. "We might be getting some answers about this case."


	6. Leaving on a Jet Plane

At noon the next day, Big D, Coiley, and Multi were at Megatropolis International Airport. The two Impossibles were in their rock 'n roller identities, in order to avoid scaring off Condor, if she happened to see them in their superhero attire. Big D was carrying the sphere inside a bowling bag, belonging to Coiley's father. It was the only thing they could think of carrying it in without looking inconspicuous. Skittles was with the group, but she was inside a pet carrier, and she absolutely _hated_ traveling this way, and she made no reservations voicing her complaints.

"Take it easy, Skittles," Multi said. "I know you hate traveling in the carrier, but we have to obey the rules. And the rules are pets must be in their carriers at all times."

Skittles knew that, but she still whined about it. All Multi could do was sigh. He knew Skittles wouldn't stop whining until she fell asleep, got tired of it, or was let out of the carrier.

"Did this Condor lady mention how you would know it was her?" Coiley asked.

"She gave me a code name," Big D explained. "Chances are, she's going to call me by it when we run into her."

The trio walked around the terminal, looking for gate 7A, which was where flight 529 to Moscow was boarding. When they were nearing it, they saw a woman with short, dark hair, wearing army fatigues and combat boots sitting by the window. She was reading a magazine, and drinking a can of Coke. Multi and Coiley stopped in their tracks.

"G.I. Jane!" they shouted in unison.

"What?" Big D asked, giving the boys a confused look.

"One of the women at the club the other night," Multi said. "Fluey said you two ran into her during the first incident with the RU."

"Yes, come to think of it, she _does_ look familiar," Big D said. "But there's no way of proving she has anything to do with this mess."

G.I. Jane looked up from her magazine, and saw the chief and the two Impossibles. She put down her can, stood up, tossed the magazine on her chair, and approached them.

"Gregory Wilkins, I presume?" she asked.

"Yes," Big D said. "And I assume you're Ms. Condor?"

"Don't blab that around here, chief. But yeah, I'm the one who's been in contact with you. Call me by my real name, Narnia Veretennikov."

"Ah yes. The young woman from the American Victory Alliance with the itchy trigger finger."

"Don't get cute. Anyway, have you got the sphere?"

"Yes, right in this bag. Now what's this all about?"

"I said I'd tell you when we got to Moscow."

"I don't like this, chief," Multi said. "How come you're not telling us now?"

"Us?" Narnia asked. "Correct me if I'm wrong, chief, but didn't I instruct you to come out here _alone_?"

"Yes," Big D said. "But after what happened the _last _time I had a sphere like this one in my possession, I decided to have some back up."

"At least you can tell us where Fluey is," Coiley said. He didn't bother with using Fluey's real name. Narnia probably already knew the Impossibles' real identities anyway.

"He's in Moscow with my partner," Narnia said. "She's looking forward to meeting you, chief. In any case, your friend is okay, still a little sick from the gas attack. Now, if you boys don't mind, clear out."

"Not a chance, lady," Multi said. "We're going along on this trip."

"No wonder you guys are called the Impossibles," Narnia groaned. "You _are_ impossible! Look, you two have absolutely nothing to do with this, so shove off!"

"Let me put it to you this way, Ms. Veretennikov," Big D said, folding his arms across his chest. "Either they go to Moscow with us, or you go to jail on murder and kidnapping charges."

Narnia groaned loudly, but gave in. That's when she heard whining coming from Multi's pet carrier. She saw Skittles, and glared at the red-haired Impossible.

"All right, you two can come, but the dog _has_ to stay here," she said. "I'm not a dog person. I really don't like them. As a matter of fact, I _hate_ them!"

"I don't know," Multi said. "After all, she _is_ part of the team."

"Look, I told you, you and your buddy can come, but _not_ the dog!" Narnia shouted.

"But she's just a puppy," Multi said. "I'm sure she . . . . ."

"No dogs," Narnia said. "And that's _it_! If you two want to come along with us, you have to leave the mutt here."

Multi and Coiley looked at each other, and then at Big D.

"Is that the only choice?" Big D asked.

"Yeah," Narnia said. "Otherwise, I might be tempted to squash the little runt if I see her outside of that thing."

"All right, boys," Big D sighed. "I know you don't like it, but I'm afraid you'll have to leave your dog here, Multi."

"But chief . . . ." Multi started.

"If you two want to tag along, that is," Narnia said. "Otherwise, you have to stay here."

Multi and Coiley stepped away to discuss this. Then they returned to Narnia and Big D.

"Okay," Multi said. "We'll leave Skittles here. I'll call Phyllis and have her pick her up now. She has plenty of time to get here, the plane doesn't leave for another two hours."

"All right," Narnia said. "Since we're being adult about this, I'll go get you two some tickets."

"How come we're going commercial?" Coiley asked. "Multi and I have a jet we could use, and it might get us there faster. And we won't have to sit around here for two hours until the flight leaves."

"We're doing it this way to throw off the AVA's enemies," Narnia said. "Now do you two want to come with us or not? Make up your minds, already!"

Coiley and Multi gave in. Narnia was in charge for the moment, and, even though they didn't like it, the boys, and Big D, were going to have to play by her rules. Narnia went to the desk in order to get a couple of tickets for Multi and Coiley, while Multi stepped off to the side to contact Phyllis about picking up Skittles. Once Phyllis arrived at the airport, Skittles began whining even more.

"Sorry, girl," Multi said, handing his pet carrier to Phyllis. "I know you want to come, but whatever Narnia says goes for right now."

"And she says Skittles has to go, huh?" Phyllis said.

"Unfortunately yes. We can't do anything about it. At least she's letting Coiley and me go with her."

"Don't worry, Multi, I'll take care of Skittles. I really _do_ think the two of you should go with Big D, anyway."

"Right, after what happened the last time. See you later, Phyllis."

Phyllis nodded, and left the terminal, with a loudly whining Skittles.

After a ten hour flight (most of which was spent sleeping), our heroes landed in Moscow, feeling extremely jet-lagged.

"I still say we should've taken the Impossi-Jet," Coiley said, stifling a yawn.

"You two wanted to come," Narnia said, shrugging. "Still got the sphere, chief?"

"Yes," Big D said. "Now that we're in Moscow, would you _kindly _explain what this is all about?"

"All in due time," Narnia said. She led Big D and the two Impossibles out of the airport, and onto the sidewalk.

"Taxi!" she shouted, extending her arm like she was hailing a cab in New York, except her arm was at waist level.

A cab drove up shortly afterward, and the group climbed in. Narnia said something to him in Russian, and the driver drove off. Half an hour later, the cab stopped at a street corner. Narnia paid the fare, and waited until our heroes climbed out of the car.

"Okay, troops," she said. "If you will be so kind as to follow me."

Big D, Coiley, and Multi followed Narnia down the street, and through some kind of tunnel. At the other end of the tunnel was what appeared to be a ghost town. The very same ghost town Big D was in when he dealt with the Russian Underground.

"Back here again, eh?" he asked. "And just what exactly is the purpose of this?"

"You'll find out when the time's right," Narnia said. "The time just isn't right yet."

"You're starting to wear my nerves, Ms. Veretennikov."

"Just be patient, chief. You'll find out what's going on."

Big D groaned, but he continued following Narnia. Multi and Coiley did the same, until they came to an old house. Narnia opened the door, and led our heroes inside.

"Anyone home?!" she called out.

"Da, Narnia," a Russian accented voice answered from down the hall. "After all, vhere are ve goink?"

Into the room stepped the other woman the Impossibles had spotted at the club the other night. The one they dubbed "Pinky Lee" because of her pink suit.

"Boys, I'd like you to meet my sister-in-law, Natasha Glamorski," Narnia said to Multi and Coiley.

"A pleasure, dahlinks," Natasha said. Then she looked at Big D. "Vonderful to see you again, Big D."

"Yes, well," Big D said, clearing his throat. Natasha just giggled, and batted her long eyelashes.

"Come on, Tash," Narnia sighed. "I'm sure the chief would like to see his grandson right now. You entertain our uninvited guests."

"Very funny," Multi said, glaring at Narnia.

Narnia ignored the red-haired Impossible and led Big D down the hall, up a flight of stairs, and into a bedroom of sorts. There was Fluey, sleeping soundly in the bed. There was also a black cat with bright green eyes laying next to him. The cat looked up at Big D and Narnia, and hissed.

"Panther!" Narnia scolded. "Bad!"

"Panther?" Big D repeated.

"My cat," Narnia explained. She picked up the cat, and left the room with him. Big D closed the door, and approached the bed. Fluey started to stir, and he slowly opened his eyes.

"Hi, chief," he said.

"Are you all right?" Big D asked. "You know you had me scared to death!"

"Not entirely my fault, chief," Fluey said, coughing a little. "But I'm okay."

Big D put his hand against Fluey's forehead for a moment.

"Well, you feel a little warm," he said. "Are you _sure_ you're all right?"

"Yeah, fine," Fluey said. "I just breathed in too much of that gas they dropped on those two military guys, that's all. It was a lot worse a few days ago."

"You said it," Narnia said, coming back into the room. Panther jumped out of her arms, jumped onto the bed, and began rubbing his head against Fluey's hand, and licking his fingers. Fluey smiled, and began scratching the side of the cat's head.

"Natasha thought she'd never break that fever he had," Narnia continued. "And she said he was coughing so hard, it sounded like he was gonna cough up a lung!"

"How long ago was this?" Big D asked.

"Three days before I sent you the ticket," Narnia said. "I wanted to make sure he was improving before I brought you here. By tomorrow, he should be back on his feet."

"And _then_ will you tell me what's going on?" Big D asked. "I don't have much patience left in that regard, Ms. Veretennikov!"

"Tomorrow," Narnia said, nodding. "I'll explain everything tomorrow."


	7. The Ghost of the Dead City

The next morning, Narnia and Natasha had gathered our heroes in the living room of the house.

"Gentlemen, I assume you would like to know what you are doing here," she said, stroking her cat.

"_There's_ the understatement of the year," Fluey said.

"Smart guy," Narnia mumbled, shooting a glare in Fluey's direction.

"Don't take it personally, Ms. Veretennikov," Big D said. "It's just a sign that he's recovered, that's all."

"Whatever," Narnia said. "In any case, Big D, if you would be so kind as to put the sphere on the table for me."

Big D opened the bag, took out the sphere, and put it on the table as directed. Panther jumped up onto the table, and began sniffing at it.

"What, are we gonna do a seance or something?" Fluey asked.

"Just give it a minute," Narnia said. "Honestly, you guys are so impatient!"

"I am in no mood for jokes, Ms. Veretennikov," Big D said. "I've about had it with this. If you don't tell me what is going on this very minute, I'm . . . . . ."

"Wait a minute, chief, look!" Multi shouted, pointing at the sphere.

The chief turned to look at the sphere, and saw that it was glowing. Panther flinched, and took a couple of steps back. Then, he slowly approached it again, until the glow began getting brighter, and a strange humming noise emitted from it.

"Reow!" he yowled, and jumped off the table, and ran behind a sofa. He peeked his head out for a moment, and gave the sphere a fierce hiss.

The sixsome watched the glowing sphere, until something began taking shape from from the glow. Big D drew in his breath. He knew what this form was. It was the ghost of the dead city they were in.

"The sphere must never be removed from this place," the ghost said. "The world would be destroyed if the sphere ever got into the hands of evil. The sphere must be kept here. And it must be guarded."

The sphere then floated off the table, and up to the ghost's hands. Inside the sphere, images of Big D, Fluey, Narnia, and Natasha appeared.

"No one should know more about their future than they have to," the ghost said. "By looking into the sphere, you have seen the future. You must pay."

"These were the exact words this spirit said to me the last time I had looked into the sphere," Big D said.

You will remain here and guard the sphere and it's secrets," the ghost continued. "You four must stay and protect the sphere, else there be more victims . . . . . those killed by the sphere . . . . mankind is not ready for these secrets."

"What do you mean we _four_ have to stay here?" Fluey asked. "I never even looked into that stupid thing!"

"You attempted to steal it," the apparition said.

"As did I, Fluid," Natasha said.

"I didn't look into it, either, but I saw what was in it after I forced your chief into looking into it for me," Narnia said.

"But . . . but I _wasn't_ really trying to steal it!" Fluey shouted.

"No, but you tried to break it," Big D said.

"But it _did_ break!" Fluey argued. "Benedict and Tracker busted the darn thing! How in the world did it . . . . ."

"Even though those two had destroyed it," the ghost said, "I managed to regenerate it. I sent it to your chief, because he was the last one to use it. You four must stay and guard the future."

And with that, the ghost of the dead city dissolved, and flew back into the sphere. Slowly, the sphere lowered itself onto the table, and the glow subsided. Panther crept out from under the couch, and sniffed at it again.

"That's it?" Fluey asked. "We're trapped here? Forever?"

"It appears so," Big D said. "Apparently, there's no escape from this fate."

"Oh boy . . . ." Fluey said, holding his hand to his head. "Trapped in this nightmare city forever . . . . . I can't believe it!"

Panther meowed, and jumped into Fluey's lap, rubbing his head against his chin, and making trilling noises in his throat. Fluey began petting him, absently. He was still in shock from the news. It was obvious it was going to take awhile before it all sank in.

It felt weird to Fluey and Big D to be back in that strange city. Multi and Coiley weren't sure what to make of the place, either. It was eerie to be in a practical ghost town. Natasha and Narnia seemed to be making do with the situation.

That particular afternoon, the sixsome was just sitting around the living room of the house. The boys were tuning their guitars, Big D and Narnia were involved in a game of chess, and Natasha was reading a book while stroking Panther, who was napping on her lap.

"I still don't understand how that stupid sphere regenerated," Fluey said, twisting one of his guitar's tuners.

"You think there's a way we can get out of this?" Coiley asked.

"You two, maybe," Narnia said, moving her bishop a couple of spaces, and capturing one of Big D's pawns. "You had nothing to do with that mess the last time. Why you're even hanging around here is beyond me. Your friend, your chief, Natasha, and I are stuck here, since the four of us got _way_ too involved with it the last time."

"Even if it _was_ against my will," Fluey muttered.

"Up until you decided to go looking for your grandfather after you had been told not to," Narnia pointed out.

"Yeah, but . . . . ." Fluey began, but Narnia cut him off.

"Don't say another word, kid," she warned. "You're in this mess, and that's that!"

"Geez, you're such a crab!" Fluey shouted. Narnia shot him a dirty look, and then turned back to Coiley and Multi.

"So you two can probably leave whenever you want," she said.

"No dice," Multi replied. "The Impossibles stick together, no matter what!"

"Suit yourselves," Narnia said, shrugging.

"Ve just have to make best of situation," Natasha said, scratching Panther under his chin. "Isn't that right, Babushkins?"

"I wish you would stop calling me that, Miss Glamorski," Big D said, giving Natasha a slight glare.

"That makes two of us," Fluey said, making a face. "I don't like you making goo-goo eyes at the chief, Natasha. You're young enough to be his granddaughter!"

"Fluid . . . . ." Big D said in a warning tone.

"Well, she's the same age as Phyllis, chief!" Fluey argued.

"All right, all right, knock it off," Narnia said. "Though I agree with the two of them, anyway, Tash. He's too old for you."

"I vas alvays attracted to older men," Natasha said, glancing at Big D, and batting her eyelashes at him.

"Yeeecchhhh," Fluey grimaced.

"I'm in full agreement on that one, Fluey," Multi said.

"Ditto," Coiley replied.

"Hmph," Natasha said. "You three are only children. Vhat do you know about true romance?"

"Oh brother," Narnia groaned.

Natasha ignored all of them, and went back to her book.


	8. Little Town Flirt

A few days later, the boys went out exploring the old city, hoping that maybe they could find a way out. Narnia had gone with them to make sure they (but mostly Fluey) didn't get into _too_ much trouble. This left Big D and Natasha alone, unless you count Panther. Big D was trying to catch up on some reading, while Panther made himself comfortable on his lap, when Natasha came into the room.

"I think ve're alone now," she said, flirtatiously.

"You're not going to start _that_ again, are you?" Big D asked, not even looking up from his book.

"I love a challenge," Natasha said. "Ve just need to get to know each other better, yes?"

"No. I've told you before, Miss Glamorski, I am _not_ interested."

"I could change your mind, dahlink."

Big D sighed. It was obvious Natasha wasn't going to give up easily, and that bothered him. It was true, he _did_ find Natasha highly attractive (but then, who wouldn't? She had a pretty face, and a body that wouldn't quit, after all), but he just didn't return the feelings she apparently had for him. Natasha giggled, and leaned against the back of the chair, wrapping her arms around the chief's shoulders. Big D tensed a bit, immediately stood up (causing Panther to jump to the floor), and walked across the room to the bookshelf. Natasha simply laughed.

"Come on, now," she said. "Stop playink hard to get."

"I'm not playing," Big D said, then he left the room. Natasha only smiled.

"You are playink," she said. "I know you are. But truthfully, it _is_ more fun vhen they play hard to get."

Big D was starting to get tired of Natasha's constant flirtations. He had told he wasn't interested in her romantically. Even if he _was_ attracted to her, that did _not_ mean he wanted to pursue a romantic relationship. Besides, he wasn't sure if she was sincere or if she had an ulterior motive.

That evening was pretty much like every other since the sixsome entered the city. The Impossibles were watching videos, since they found it pointless to rehearse or even write any new numbers. Big D and Narnia were playing chess, and Natasha was sitting around, reading a book. Panther had been sleeping on her lap, but after awhile, he jumped off, and parked himself in the small of Fluey's back, since Fluey was laying on his stomach on the floor while watching the TV. He started washing his paws, and then, he climbed up onto Fluey's shoulder, and rubbed his head against the dark-haired Impossible's, purring. Fluey laughed, reached over, and began scratching the side of the cat's face, which made him purr even more.

"I have never seen that cat take to someone so fast before," Narnia commented. "He really likes that grandson of yours."

"I've noticed," Big D replied. He could hear the cat purring from all the way across the room.

By now, Fluey was laying on his back on the floor, with Panther on his stomach, kneading the dark-haired Impossible's chest. Once he stopped kneading, Fluey started scratching near the base of the cat's tail. Panther stretched his front legs out, as he raised his rear end into the air, and purred even louder.

"The kid's found Panther's pleasure spot," Narnia said, moving a pawn. "I call it the 'elevator butt' routine. He _loves_ being scratched at the base of his tail."

Big D merely nodded, and studied the chess board, planning his next move. Natasha put down her book, and walked over to the chief. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and started to lean her head toward his neck. Fluey happened to look over toward her, and saw what she was doing.

"Look out, chief, it's Countess Dracula!" he shouted.

"Ooooh, you . . . . ." Natasha started, glaring at Fluey.

"Miss Glamorski," Big D sighed, frustratedly. "_Must_ you be so persistent?"

"Not until I get vhat I vant," Natasha said.

"Tash, cut it out, already," Narnia said. "You're making us all crazy with this!"

"Not to mention sick to our stomachs," Fluey said. "At least, mine, anyway!"

"Ignore him, Babushkins," Natasha said. "After all, he is only a child. He knows nothink of true love."

"And apparently, neither do you," Big D said, managing to shake Natasha off of him by standing up. "I have told you time and time again, I am _not_ interested! How many times do I have to tell you that?"

"You could tell her 'till the cows come home, chief," Fluey commented, "and even _then_ I don't think she'd get it."

"Vill you _kindly_ stay out of this?" Natasha asked, shooting Fluey a glare.

"No way," Fluey replied, ignoring Natasha's glare. "I don't like you coming on to Big D like that. It's kinda disturbing. Besides, can't you see he doesn't even like you?"

"Vhat vould _you_ know?" Natasha asked, wrapping her arms around the chief's shoulders again. "This is between _me_ and _him._ And he does so like me, don't you, Babuskhins?"

"Absolutely not," Big D said, bluntly.

"Vhat?" Natasha asked, somewhat confused.

"You heard me, Miss Glamorski," Big D replied, pulling away from the Russian femme fatale. "I do not reciprocate the feelings you have toward me. I never had, and most likely, I never will."

"But . . . . but . . . . vhy not?" Natasha asked.

"You drugged his coffee the first time you met him, for one thing," Fluey said. "Not the best way to make a first impression."

"I told you to butt out!" Natasha shouted.

"I don't take orders from you," Fluey said, sitting up.

"But you _do_ take orders from me," Big D pointed out. "And I'd like you to keep out of this, all right?"

"Okay, chief," Fluey said. He stroked Panther's ears, and went back to the video he, Multi, and Coiley were watching.

"Ms. Glamorski," Big D continued to Natasha. "Please, try to understand this. I don't have any of the feelings for you that you have for me."

"You could learn!" Natasha shouted, wrapping her arms around the chief's neck. "I know you could learn!"

"I highly doubt it," Big D continued, managing to pull Natasha off of him. "You're making this very difficult."

"Resistance is futile, Babushkins," Natasha said. "You can't fight it, so vhy not just embrace it? Vhy not admit it? You love me. I know you love me. Vhy don't you just admit it?"

"Because I _don't _love you!" Big D shouted, losing whatever patience he had left. "I'm not in love with you, I never _was_ in love with you, and I never _will_ be in love with you! I don't have any interest in you whatsoever, romantically or otherwise! What is it going to take to get you to understand that?!"

Natasha stood there, wide-eyed with shock. Then, she glared sharply at Big D and slapped him across the face as hard as she could, screamed something in Russian at him, ran down the hallway, and slammed the door shut as hard as she possibly could. Moments later, they heard extremely loud screaming (more like shrieking, actually), and the sound of things breaking.

"Whoa," Fluey said.

"I'm sorry I had to say it like that, but I saw no alternative," Big D said.

"No, it's better you did it that way," Narnia said. "Natasha can't take a hint, even when you apply it with a sledgehammer."

"Think she'll be okay in there?" Multi asked.

"Oh yeah, she'll be fine," Narnia said. "I've seen her do this before. She'll throw a tantrum, have herself a good cry for an hour, eat an entire pint of rum raisin ice cream in one sitting, and by tomorrow, she'll forget this whole thing ever happened. Worst she'll do is give chiefy-kins the silent treatment for a couple of days."

Narnia was so sure that was the way it was going to happen, but actually, Natasha wasn't going to forget about it. Not any time soon, anyway. She was grabbing everything that she could and throwing them against the wall as hard as she could.

"You vill pay for this, Big D," she growled. "I promise you, you vill pay for hurting me! I vill see to it that I hurt you _more_ than you have hurt me!"


	9. Departure

Time passed without incident, and it would appear that Natasha had calmed down. She was just giving Big D and the Impossibles the silent treatment. As the sixsome were going about, absorbed in their own activities, in an attempt to keep from losing their marbles, the sphere suddenly began to light up, and an image of a ghost of the dead city appeared in it.

"You no longer have to guard the future," he said. "It has no meaning anymore. You must leave quickly."

"What?" Big D asked, standing up.

"You're putting us on!" Fluey shouted.

"You don't have very much time," the ghost said. "Leave quickly!"

And with that, the ghost faded out of the sphere. Almost immediately, Narnia rushed into one of the bedrooms, grabbed her suitcase, and began packing it.

"No way I'm wasting a second getting out of here!" she shouted.

"I wonder what made the ghosts change their minds," Multi said.

"You think we ought to leave, chief?" Coiley asked.

"I don't know about you," Natasha said. "But I'd rather get out of here before I bust up."

"Crack up," Fluey corrected.

"We might as well," Big D said. "I feel about ready to crack up myself."

And with that, Big D and the Impossibles immediately packed up the things they brought with them, and prepared to leave. Before they left, Big D opened the wall safe, and took out the useless sphere. He wasn't sure why he was taking it with him, but he felt he should.

The group then left the house, and walked to the city limits. Then, they just kept right on walking, until they came to the highway.

"I wish we'd brought the Impossi-Mobile," Multi said. "It's a long walk from here to the airport."

"We could always hitchhike," Narnia said, stroking her cat.

"I'd rather take my chances walking," Coiley said.

"All in favor of walking say aye," Big D said.

"Aye!" the three Impossibles called out.

"All in favor of hitchhiking?" Big D said.

"Aye!" the girls called out.

"Row," Panther chirped.

"The ayes have it," Big D said. "Four against two."

"Or four against three if you include the cat," Fluey said, rubbing the side of Panther's face. Panther purred, and jumped from Narnia's arms into Fluey's.

The girls gave in, and the group continued walking along the road. Natasha was leading them. She knew there was a railroad station close by. That would get them into the city, and from there, the chief and the Impossibles could get to the airport. The group walked for hours, and Fluey was suddenly starting to get agitated.

"Guys . . . . . something weird's going on here," he said.

"What do you mean, Fluey?" Multi asked.

"How long have we been walking?" Fluey asked.

"_Too_ long!" Narnia shouted.

"About three hours," Big D said, checking his watch.

"And we're on a highway, right?" Fluey went on. "You'd _think_ there'd be some traffic around here! I haven't seen a single car once since we left that weird city!"

"He is right," Natasha said. "This is busy highvay normally."

"I don't like it," Fluey said. "Something just seems . . . . . _wrong_. But I don't know what."

"Maybe ve'll get some answers at the train station," Natasha said. "Ve're close to it. Come on."

The group continued on their way, until they reached the train station. It was usually packed with people coming and going. But there was no one outside, and no one inside once they walked through the doors. Panther jumped out of Fluey's arms, and began wandering around, sniffing.

"Where _is_ everyone?" Coiley asked. "The place is about as deserted as that ghost town we just left!"

"I'm getting a bad feeling about this . . . ." Fluey said, nervously.

"Maybe we ought to look around for signs of life," Multi suggested.

"Excellent suggestion," Big D said. As the boys split up to look around, Big D turned to Narnia and Natasha.

"Should I assume that the two of you have something to do with this?" he asked.

"Don't look at me, Pops," Narnia said, and she started to walk off. "I don't have a clue. Now if you'll excuse me, while your boys are searching for clues, I'm going to look for my cat."

"Forgive her," Natasha said. "She gets cranky vhen she gets hungry. I'll go find some food. She'll be in better mood vonce she eats."

Big D merely nodded, and went to search the station himself. Everyone regrouped a few minutes later.

"Did you guys find anything?" Narnia asked, hoisting Panther over her shoulder.

"All I found was a ripped up train ticket," Fluey said, pulling the pieces of the ticket out of his pocket. "Looks like whoever bought it didn't have any hope of leaving."

"This place looks like it's been abandoned for years," Multi said. "I found a bunch of pill packets, all of them empty. There looked like there could have been twenty pills in each. With three packages, that meant sixty pills."

"I found somebody's wallet, as well as a locket, and a cell phone," Coiley said. "I highly doubt someone would just leave them on the floor of a train station."

"I'm going to call headquarters," Big D said, punching in some information on his wrist communicator. "Once I get in touch with them, they'll send a jet over to our location."

That sounded like a good idea, except, for some reason, all Big D was getting was static. Coiley, Multi, and Fluey tried their communicators as well, but they were also getting nothing but static.

"Something weird's going on here," Coiley said.

"I have to wonder just how long we were in that city," Fluey said, somewhat nervously. "Maybe we were stuck there for so long, the end of the world came, only we didn't know about it, because time runs differently in that weird ghost city we were in."

"I've asked you time and time again," Big D groaned. "_Stop_ watching those late night horror movies!"

"Wait a minute, there's a pay phone over there," Multi said. "I'll call the operator to get long distance and call somebody at HQ."

Multi walked over to the phone, and picked it up. He suddenly stopped, and a nervous look crossed his face.

"It's dead," he said, as he hung up. "Not even a dial tone!"

"What do you think, chief?" Coiley asked.

"I don't know," Big D replied. "Give me the ticket, Fluid. I'm going to try to see if the cashier's still here."

Fluey gave Big D the ticket scraps, and the chief walked over to the cashier's window. He noticed there were a bunch of flies hovering around it. Panther meowed, jumped down from Narnia's shoulder, and ran to the door to the cashier's office. He began pawing at it, meowing his head off. Once Big D reached the window, he backed off almost immediately.

"What's up, chief?" Fluey asked, as he walked over. Then, he too suddenly backed away.

"Yeee-_uuuccchhh_!" he shouted, pinching his nose shut. "What died in there?!"

"Not a good choice of words, Fluey," Coiley commented. "Considering."

"Oh yeah," Fluey said, sheepishly. "Sorry about that."

"Smells like dead fish," Narnia said, coming over. "Which would explain Panther. I'm going to take a look in the office."

"I'll go with you," Big D said. "I'm curious to this myself."

"Yeah, there might be something inside that'll help us," Coiley said.

"Or not," Multi said. "But it's worth checking out. What do you say, Fluey?"

"No thanks!" Fluey shouted. "I don't think I even _want_ to know what's in there!"

"I agree," Natasha said. "Ve'll vait for you out here."

That being said, the foursome (fivesome, including Panther) opened the door to the office, and began looking around. Panther immediately ran to the source of the fowl smell, which was just a plate of rotting fish laying on the counter. Panther immediately began helping himself, until Narnia grabbed him.

"Oh no you don't, you little pig," she said. "Ugh! Somebody cover that up!"

"With pleasure," Big D said. He took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wrapped the fish in it. Then he threw it all in the trashcan, and turned it over so Panther wouldn't get at it. Though the cat _did _paw at the can, and whined a little, but the others just ignored him.

"This office is about as deserted as the rest of this place," Coiley said, looking around.

"That's for sure," Multi said, looking under the desk.

"Hey, check out this filing cabinet," Coiley said. "Why would a train station have military information?"

"What kind of information?" Big D asked.

"I don't know, it's locked," Coiley said, shrugging.

"Anybody got a bobby pin handy?" Multi asked. "I didn't have time to raid my sister's hair supplies before we left."

"Don't look at me," Narnia said, opening a desk drawer. "But maybe we'll find the key to the cabinet in here. Help me look."

The group began pawing through the drawers on the desk. They didn't come up with much, but they did manage to unearth a couple of things, such as notes corresponding with the military, as well as tickets to a tropical island, an engagement ring, and a little bride and groom figure.

"Looks like someone was about to get married," Coiley said.

"It might've been called off," Multi said, looking at the tickets. "These are dated from two days ago."

"Check out all these bottles," Narnia said, lining up at least five medicine bottles. "Prescription medicine for Neurostimulator MD-five-three-two."

"What's that?" Multi asked.

"It helps with narcolepsy," Big D said, as he pulled out several packets of instant coffee. "My guess is the cashier had difficulty staying awake on the job."

"Wait a minute," Narnia said, pulling out some computer disks. "Maybe there's some info on the computer."

"It couldn't hurt," Coiley said, pulling out a book labeled "User's Journal" from the drawer. "This may come in handy, too."

Narnia fiddled with the computer, until she managed to pull up the train time table. She gave the screen a funny look when she saw that every single train was running late.

"Okay, this is getting freaky," she said. "According to this, all of these trains should have arrived by now!"

"I think we're about to find out what's going on," Big D said, pulling a key out of the drawer. The symbol on the keychain matched a symbol on one of the drawers of the filing cabinet. Immediately, the chief unlocked the drawer, and pulled a document out of it.

"Initiation of Plan X has been ordered by supreme command," he read. "It's from someone, or some_thing_, known as Military Intelligence."

"What's Plan X?" Multi asked.

"I have no idea," Big D said. "This is all that's in the files."

"Well, looks like we'll have to find another way out of here," Narnia said, picking up her cat. "Kind of pointless to wait for a train now."

Big D and the two Impossibles agreed. Big D was just about to open the door, when he stopped suddenly, and just stood there, staring out into space.

"Chief?" Coiley asked. "Why did you stop like that?"

Big D didn't answer. It was as if he was in a trance of some kind. He felt as if he had looked into the sphere. Everything faded out in some sort of pinkish purple glow, and then another image faded in. The images were only shadows, but the chief knew one of them was Fluey, and it looked like he was laying on a hospital table. There was a shadow of a man standing by the table, holding what appeared to be a syringe in his hand. Big D heard evil cackling, and then the image suddenly faded out.


	10. On the Road Again

"Chief?" Multi asked. "Hey, chief, are you okay?"

"Earth to chiefy boy, hellooooo!" Narnia shouted, waving her hand in front of Big D's face. "Hey! Wake up!"

"What?" Big D asked, snapping back into reality.

"You all right, boss?" Coiley asked. "You look like you just saw a ghost."

"More like a hallucination," Big D said. "Much like when we had encountered this place the first time. We'd better regroup with Fluid and Miss Glamorski. I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this whole thing myself."

The group ran out of the cashier's office and into the station, only to find it a bigger mess than before. Fluey and Natasha weren't around, either.

"What happened?" Coiley asked.

"Where are Natasha and Fluey?" Multi asked.

"They've got to be around here somewhere," Narnia said. "Let's split up and look around again."

The foursome split up, and began covering the station with the proverbial fine tooth comb. Panther began pawing at something on the floor. He picked it up in his mouth, and ran to Big D.

"Meeeowww," he said, tapping Big D's leg with his paw. "Roooowwwww!"

"What's this?" Big D asked, turning toward the cat. He bent down, and picked up what looked like an ID card.

"Vladimir Rozhkov," he read. "Mental Clinic Number Eleven. Zhukov Street Twenty-One. I wonder . . . . . ."

"Chief, we can't find Fluey or Natasha anywhere!" Coiley shouted.

"Though I suspect foul play," Multi said. "I found Fluey's communicator close to where we left him and Natasha, as well as this syringe. They must be in trouble!"

"Agreed," Big D said, as he picked up Panther, and handed him to Narnia. "Your cat found this on the floor. What do you make of it?"

"Beats me," Narnia said, looking at the ID card. "I've never seen this man before. I've never heard of that clinic, either."

Before anyone could answer, Panther jumped out of Narnia's arms, and ran toward a bench. He began swatting at a piece of paper. Narnia groaned.

"Panther, we don't have time to play now!" she shouted, as she took the paper. "What is this, anyway? Hey, chiefy, looks like it's for you."

"Let me see that," Big D said, taking the piece of paper. "Greetings, Big D. You and your agents are the last ones. Our game has now begun. Your grandson is my guarantee that you will voluntarily take on the challenge. Everything depends on you, and your agents. The Chessmaster."

"The Chessmaster?" Multi repeated. "Who's he?"

"I've no idea," Big D said, crumpling up the paper. Then he turned to Narnia, angrily. "But I have a pretty good idea who might. Ms. Veretennikov, is this your idea of a joke?! Did you and your sister-in-law plan this?!"

"What's wrong, Big D?" Coiley asked.

"During the last encounter with the sphere," Big D explained, "when I was first in that strange city, I had received several cryptic notes, similar to this one. Some were written by Miss Glamorski, and others by the Russian Underground. Maybe even some by Ms. Veretennikov."

"You think I wrote that?" Narnia asked. "Seriously, I don't know what you're talking about! I don't know any Chessmaster!"

"After what happened the last time, I'm not sure I can trust either you, _or_ that sister-in-law of yours," Big D said.

"And there's also the fact that it mentions Big D, and the three of us," Multi said. "It doesn't say anything in there about you, _or_ Natasha, Narnia."

"I'll ask you again, Ms. Veretennikov," Big D said, sounding like he was about to lose his patience any minute. "What do you know about this Chessmaster?"

"Nothing!" Narnia shouted. "I don't know who he is, or what he's up to! And I don't know this Vladimir Rozhkov, either. Listen, Pops, if your grandson's in trouble, then chances are, so's Natasha. I don't think we've got a choice here. We need to work together to find them"

"Right," Big D said. Then he sighed. "Very well, Ms. Veretennikov. But if I find out you're lying to me, you'll find out the hard way the consequences of crossing me."

Narnia said nothing, and she led the group outside so they could search around. Coiley and Multi immediately changed to their superhero alter egos, and began searching the parking lot.

"Hey, chief!" Multi called. "I found some car tracks, and something that looks like a light from an ambulance!"

"We'll never be able to catch up to the kidnapper on foot," Coiley said. "We need to find a mode of transportation somehow."

"There's a garage over there," Narnia said, pointing across the lot. "Maybe there's something inside it."

The group walked toward the garage, and found the door was unlocked. Coiley and Multi lifted it open, and the group found an old, rusted car, with no tires, and a cracked windshield.

"Where's Rogers when I need him?" Big D sighed.

"The agency's mechanic," Coiley explained to Narnia.

"Ah ha," Narnia said. "There's only one thing to do. We gotta fix it up. We're gonna need some bolts, some tires, and some other junk. Let's get to it."

The foursome began looking around the garage, while Panther merely sat by, licking his paws.

"I wish we'd brought Skittles along," Multi said, pulling a couple of bolts out of a tool box. "We'd find these things a lot easier."

"Too bad Panther isn't a dog," Coiley said.

While Narnia and the two Impossibles were looking for bolts, Big D opened the hood of the car, and groaned.

"We have our work cut out for us," he said. "The car's battery is missing."

"Oh brother," Multi groaned.

"Well then, let's look for another one," Narnia said, sounding annoyed. "Have a little common sense! Sheesh . . . . ."

Big D ignored Narnia's "sheesh," and he and the boys looked around the vacant garage for the tools they needed. Luckily, Narnia found another car battery, while Coiley and Multi found the rest of the bolts, as well as four tires.

"Okay, boys," Narnia said, twirling a wrench she found in the tool box. "I know exactly what to do. We'll have this thing running like a dream in no time. Here's what I want you to do. The four of you get the tires back on the car, while I get the battery back in place."

Once the boys got the tires back on the car, Coiley pushed a button, which lowered the car to the floor, and then he opened the garage door. Multi had found a tank of gas, and he poured it into the car. He climbed in, and then groaned.

"Hollerin' hi-fi's!" Multi shouted. "The inside of this thing is almost as worse as the outside!"

"What's wrong, Multi?" Coiley asked.

"The steering wheel, the rear-view mirror, and the ignition are MIA, and the knob to the gear shift is gone," Multi said. "We'll have to replace everything before we can continue!"

"Well, let's get started," Big D said.

"No way you're gonna be able to replace the ignition!" Narnia shouted.

"Maybe not," Big D said. "But I'm pretty sure I can get this heap started by cutting and splicing some wires."

"How do you plan to accomplish that?" Narnia asked.

"I need a knife," Big D said. "If you would be so kind as to allow me to borrow yours, Ms. Veretennikov . . . . ."

"Fine," Narnia said, handing Big D her knife.

"But where are the rest of us gonna find the steering wheel and the other stuff, chief?" Coiley asked.

Big D didn't answer. Instead, he opened the glove compartment, and rummaged through it for a moment, unearthing not only the missing gear shift knob, but also some gears.

"Well, one down, two to go," he said. "I wonder what on earth these gears could be for?"

"I think I know, chief," Multi said, eyeing a safe sitting on a shelf. "Call it a hunch, but I think whatever's in that safe is going to give us what we're looking for."

Multi took the gears, and walked over to the safe. The locking mechanism was missing it's cover, and that exposed spaces for the gears. Multi quickly put them in, and turned the key, unlocking the safe. Inside, he found the missing steering wheel, and rearview mirror. Once the chief attached them, the boys climbed into the car. Narnia collected her cat, and climbed in as well. Then, the chief started splicing the wires together, until he got the car started.

"And away we go!" Coiley shouted.


	11. The Mystery Thickens

The quintet drove the car into a strange city, much like the one they had just left. It was empty, and much too quiet.

"What the devil _is_ going on around here?!" Big D shouted, frustratedly.

"Maybe we ought to investigate," Multi said.

"Good idea, bright boy," Narnia said, sarcastically. "Because we'll sure never find anything just standing here doing nothing!"

"There is no need for sarcasm," Big D said. "Come on, you and I will search this side of the street, and Coil and Multi, you search the other side."

"Right, chief!" Multi and Coiley shouted, saluting their superior.

With that, the quartet separated. Panther decided to stay in the car, and catch a quick cat nap. Big D and Narnia walked up their side of the street, and came to a bar. The door was open, but there wasn't much of anything inside it, except a mess.

"Must've been some party," Narnia said.

Big D looked around the place a little, when suddenly, he felt his head spinning. He grabbed onto the jukebox for support, before he could fall over.

"What's the matter with you?" Narnia asked, giving him a weird look.

"I don't . . . . know . . . ." Big D said. "I feel . . . . . I feel like I'm . . . . falling asleep . . . ."

"Hey, no sleeping on the job, chiefy boy!"

Big D groaned, and held his hand over his eyes. He was struggling to stay awake. Suddenly, everything around him disappeared, and he saw a strange vision. It was of Fluey, laying on a hospital bed. There were several other people as well. They all looked like they were asleep, but Big D wasn't sure about that. All he knew was he was about to fall asleep any second, and he couldn't let that happen. Narnia noticed this, and she began to grow concerned.

"Hey, chief, you okay?" she asked.

"Need . . . . . to stay awake . . . . ." Big D said, straining.

"Hang on a second, I'll see what I can find," Narnia said, and she ran over toward the bar.

Narnia looked all over the bar, and found several bottles, most of them half empty, and some crushed cans. Finally, she unearthed a six pack of energy drinks in cans, and they hadn't been opened. She ripped one from the plastic ring, opened the can, and handed it to Big D.

"Here, drink this," she said.

Big D immediately grabbed the can, and drank the contents, but it wasn't enough. Narnia continued opening the cans from the six pack, and handing them to the chief. She hoped that they would take effect soon. She didn't know what she was going to do when she ran out of cans! Finally, at the fifth can from the six pack, Big D started to wake up. He stood up, and heaved a sigh of relief.

"Thank you," he said. "The last thing I want to do is start falling asleep on this job."

"Yeah, you really didn't look good there for a minute," Narnia said. "Listen, you look like you could use a breather. Why don't you take a break? I'll search the place for any clues or anything useful."

"No, I'm fine. I'll help search."

"Look, Pops, I know you don't trust me, but I really think you oughta sit down for a minute. You're not gonna be any help to that grandson of yours if you keel over, you know!"

Big D wanted to argue, but Narnia had a point. He sighed, turned one of the chairs laying on the floor upright, and sat down, leaning against the table. Narnia nodded in approval.

"That's better," she said. "Now you just sit there, and let me handle this."

"Very well," Big D said.

Narnia started searching behind the bar. Along with the half empty bottles, crushed cans, and other debris, she found a neon bar sign, which was flickering. It was also written in Russian.

"Egor's Bar," she said, looking at the sign. "Not anymore, Egor."

Narnia continued looking around the mess. She found a menu tacked to the wall, and just stared at it.

"Weird," she said. "There aren't any alcoholic drinks listed on this menu!"

"Odd," Big D said. "What _is_ on that menu, anyway?"

"One injection, fifteen hundred dollars, one pill, five hundred dollars, energy drink, two hundred fifty dollars, and coffee, one hundred dollars."

"A bit steep, don't you think? And what on earth does it mean by one injection and one pill?"

"Beats me, Pops."

Narnia continued to look around, until she saw a TV in the corner.

"Hello, what have we here?" she said. "Hey, Pops, I think I might've found something that'll help us out!"

"Good thinking," Big D said, standing up, and walking over to the television. "If there was some kind of disaster, there's sure to be some sort of broadcast on it."

Narnia turned the TV on, but the only thing that came up on channel one was a test pattern. She tried channel two, and all she got was colored bars. Channel three was the same. When she hit the channel four button, she got an image of a large factory with black smoke coming out of the smokestacks. Underneath it was the word "pollution." Quickly, it switched to a picture of a tank, with the word "war" underneath it. Then it switched to a reddish-orange mushroom cloud, like a nuclear explosion. Underneath that it said "death." Then it switched to a man in a brown suit and glasses, pointing at the audience.

"You are all guilty!" he shouted. Then the montage started repeating itself.

"Looks like someone's intercepted the signal," Big D said. "I can only hope this is a joke. Let's try another channel, shall we?"

"Good idea," Narnia said, and she pushed the button for channel five. The same bars and tones. And it was the same on channel six as well.

"Okay, now _this_ is freaky!" she shouted. "It's the same thing on every channel, except four! Nothing, except the signal hijackers."

"I don't like this one bit," Big D said. "I don't know what's going on, but I'm determined to find out!"

The duo continued searching the bar, and managed to unearth several stacks of money, as well as a laptop computer, a DVD player, and a gold necklace.

"These must be worth quite a lot," Big D said. "Now that menu makes sense to me."

"Yeah, this Egor fella must've been a drug dealer," Narnia said. "Why else would there be an injection and a pill listed on his menu? The coffee and the energy drinks must've been for sobering up."

Big D then went over to one of the tables, and searched around it for anything. There was what appeared to be police equipment there, as well as an access card with a bullet hole through it.

"This doesn't look good," Big D said. He investigated further, and unearthed a badge.

"Of course, it's in Russian," he grumbled. "I don't speak a lick of Russian."

"Lucky for you, I do, bubie," Narnia said, taking the badge. "This is a badge from a bank. The guy was probably a security guard."

"But why would he leave all his equipment here?"

"And why is there so much cash all over the place?"

"There's only one way to find out. Come on."

Narnia shrugged, snatched the guard's gun, loaded some bullets into it, and stuck it in her belt. She had a feeling they might need it.

Across the street, Coiley and Multi had found a bank with the door open, and they went inside to investigate. But the minute they stepped inside, an extremely loud alarm went off.

"We've got to turn that thing off!" Multi shouted.

"Yeah, but how?!" Coiley shouted.

"Let's look around and see what we can find!"

Multi went behind a nearby desk, and found a computer. It was still in working condition.

"Maybe there's something on the computer that'll help," he said. He clicked the mail icon, and a screen came up. On the screen, there was a message that listed the alarm security codes.

"Hey, Coiley!" he shouted. "I found the alarm codes!"

"Great!" Coiley shouted, looking at the keypad beside the vault. "But it's not gonna do us any good without an access card!"

"I can't find one around here, either. Looks like we're done in here."

The boys left the bank, and went back to the car. Big D and Narnia arrived there shortly afterwards.

"Did you find anything, chief?" Multi asked.

"Only a deserted bar with large amounts of money on hand," Big D said. "As well as a security guard's equipment, but nothing that can help us much."

"Security guard's equipment?" Coiley asked. "Did that include an access card to the vault?"

"Yes, I believe so," Big D said, taking the card he found out of his pocket. "Why?"

"We were just in the bank, and we think there might be something in there," Multi said. "But we can't turn off the alarm without an access card."

"We'll be back as soon as we can, Big D!" Coiley shouted, taking the access card, and he and Multi rushed into the bank.

"You want to go in after them?" Narnia asked.

"No," Big D replied, shaking his head. "I think I need a break."

Narnia nodded. She figured it wouldn't be long before Big D started tiring out from this whole debacle.

Upon returning inside, Coiley took the access card, and swiped it into the card reader. Unfortunately, there was still a problem.

"I can't read the card number," he said.

"Maybe we should use the trial and error method," Multi said, printing out the access codes from the computer. "But I'm worried if we do that, the system will reset itself after a set number of tries, like the passwords at HQ."

"Wait a minute," Coiley said, rubbing the card. "The residue's coming off. Card number two."

"Okay, I'll read the numbers, and you punch them in."

"Right!"

Multi slowly read the access code to Coiley, who punched them into the keypad as soon as Multi gave them to him. As soon as the numbers were punched in, a green light on the keypad lit up, and the alarm stopped.

"Now we can concentrate on investigating," Coiley said. "Let's get to it!"

The boys went into their investigation, starting with one of the shelves behind the desk. Multi found a digital camera on the floor, and picked it up. He turned it on, and turned it to the last picture that was on it. It was a woman, holding a sign that read "remember me."

"Huh," Multi said. "I wonder what this means?"

"Beats me," Coiley said. "I think I'm beginning to understand what the chief went through the last time he was in that city."

"Yeah, one mystery after another. The more information we find, the more questions we have. Come on, let's keep looking."

The boys continued their search. They found some CD's, and put them on the desk, in order to examine later. They figured there might be something on them. They also found various test tubes and glass cylinders, most likely found in science labs, not banks. Coiley also found something, though he wish he hadn't. It was a dried bat.

"Yuck!" he shouted, immediately dropping the bat, nearly the minute he picked it up.

"Yuck is right," Multi said, making a face. "Who'd want to deposit a dried bat in a bank?"

"I don't know, but I don't think I _want_ to know!"

The boys continued looking around. Coiley managed to find an old book, while Multi found several sheets from a daily calendar.

"Folk Remedies for Narcolepsy," Coiley read.

"Check out the notes on these calendar pages, Coiley," Multi said. "One says, I think I can do it, three days left . . . . the next day's says, it's harder than I thought . . . . . and the day after that says, I surrender. Looks like someone was having a battle with something every day. At lost."

"I'm starting to get worried," Coiley said, picking up a test tube. "It looks like this particular bank employee was dabbling in alchemy. And I just don't understand why!"

"Maybe those disks we found will have something on them to explain this. Let's look."

Multi loaded the disk into the computer, and waited for it to boot up. Then he clicked the icon, and a video came on the screen, from a security camera. However, there was no picture, only sound. There were gunshots, people screaming, and then there was the sound of a vault being opened.

"Sounds like a robbery," Multi said. "That could explain the money Big D found in the bar."

"Maybe we should check out the vault," Coiley said.

"Not yet," Multi said, eyeing a sticky note. "Maybe we should investigate around this desk a little more first."

Multi then grabbed the sticky note, and looked at it. It read, "some fuses were delivered here by mistake. Take them to the shop across the street." It was signed by someone named Masha.

"Who's Masha?" Coiley asked.

"I don't know," Multi said, sticking the note in his pocket. "Come on, let's keep looking. We've got to find out what's going on here."

Coiley nodded, and looked around. He noticed something blinking on the phone, and pushed a button on it.

"Sweetheart," a voice said, "we love you, and believe you can make it. Hold on. Your mother and father."

"Weird voicemail," Coiley said. "Sounds like a farewell message."

"Speaking of messages," Multi said, grabbing a letter, "listen to this one. We were all doomed from the beginning, no matter what the talking heads on TV said . . . . just hold on for five days. The vaccine is almost ready . . . . . I hate them."

"Vaccine?" Coiley asked.

"I wonder if there was a pandemic or something?" Multi said, as he picked up a syringe from the keyboard, as well as some loose keys. "Hey, look, Coiley, those fuses the sticky note mentioned. Looks like they never got delivered."

"Something really weird is going on here. Let's check out the vault."

Multi agreed, and the boys immediately went to work, searching the vault. A lot of the deposit boxes were open, and all of them were empty. There was a spiral drawn on the floor, and candles lit all around it.

"Looks like some kind of a ritual," Coiley said. "But what kind?"

"I wish Danalleah were here," Multi said. "I'm sure _she'd_ know what this was about."

Multi looked around the room, and saw what looked like a fuse box on the wall. He duplicated himself upward to take a look at it. Luckily for him, it was unlocked. The only thing inside of it was a single fuse, which he grabbed.

"I have a feeling we might need these," he said. "Come on, Coiley. Let's get out of here. I'm not sure I even _want_ to know what happened."

"I'm with you, Multi!" Coiley shouted.

The boys returned to the car, and showed Big D the notes they had found.

"What do you make of it, chief?" Coiley asked.

"I'm not sure," he said. "Maybe we ought to investigate the store directly across from the bank."

"No dice, man," Narnia said. "The door's stuck."

"I'm sure it just needs a couple of good whacks," Coiley said. "Rally ho!"

Coiley went all the way back to the sidewalk outside the bank, and stretched his fist out as hard as he could. Thanks to the spring loaded pressure, the door opened the minute his fist slammed into it. Narnia was impressed.

"Hey, where were you the _last_ time we were in that city?" she asked.

"Never mind," Big D said. "We've got some investigating to do."

The group walked into the store, but it was completely dark. Luckily, Narnia had a flashlight.

"So where's the light switch?" she asked.

"There's another fuse box up there," Multi said. "Give me the fuses, Coiley. I'll take care of this."

Coiley gave Multi the fuses, and the red-haired Impossible duplicated himself upward in order to reach the box. He opened it, and began putting the fuses inside, hoping they were still good. Once he inserted the fuses, he pushed the buttons on them, and the store lit up.

"That's better," he said, retracting his multi's. "Now we can see what we're investigating."

"Everybody split up and take a section," Coiley said. "We'll cover more ground that way."

The others agreed, and went to work searching. They didn't find much, just a three day old newspaper, some alarm clocks set for different times, a CD player with some excruciatingly loud, hard, acid rock turned up to full volume, and some fortune cookies. One had a message sticking out of it, which read "ULOST."

"Somehow, I find this very appropriate," Big D sighed.

"There's not much to go on here," Narnia said.

"Meow," a voice came from behind the cash register. The group went toward it, and found Panther, playing with a scrap of paper.

"You little devil!" Narnia shouted, picking up her cat. "You snuck in here after we did, didn't you?"

"Hold it," Big D said, taking the piece of paper the cat had been playing it. "Unless I miss my guess, this is a map piece. We'll never find the clinic with this, but maybe there are others around here."

"Yeah!" Coiley shouted. "Maybe other survivors of this pandemic or whatever it is."

"Come on!" Multi shouted. "We don't have a moment to lose!"


	12. The Apartment

The group went over to an apartment complex. It was just like everything else, abandoned and lifeless. Panther suddenly jumped out of Narnia's arms, and ran off.

"Hey, Panther!" Multi shouted. "Come back here!"

"He's probably gone to chase a mouse or something," Narnia said, shrugging. "I don't think we're going to find much of anything here."

"Looks can be deceiving Ms. Veretennikov," Big D replied. "Or is there a reason you _don't_ want us searching here?"

"Of course not!" Narnia shouted, indignantly. "Why are you in_sist_ing I have something to do with this?! I've told you time and time again, I'm a member of a group of freedom fighters!"

"I'm aware of that," Big D went on. "I'm also aware the AVA has tactics that don't meet with my agency's ethics. I'm not ruling out any possibility, you understand."

Narnia was about to pummel the chief, when the group heard something coming from inside an apartment.

"Meow!"

The group looked toward a window and saw Panther inside, staring down at them.

"Looks like he found a way in," Coiley said, looking at a small hole in the wall. "There's no way any of us can get through _that_!"

"Fluey definitely could, but . . . ." Multi said.

"Yeah, we know," Narnia said, throwing Big D a glare.

"Looks like we have to figure out what this code is to open the door," the chief said, looking at a strange keypad on the side of the apartment's door. "And that's going to be easier said than done."

"There's got to be a clue somewhere," Multi said, and he and Coiley began examining the lock, and the area around it.

"Hmmm . . . ." Coiley said, eyeing a note taped to the door. "I wonder . . . . ."

"Wonder what, Coiley?" Multi asked.

"This note says 'I'm waiting,' and it's dated October sixth. I wonder if that's the code?"

"Only one way to find out."

Multi punched in the corresponding numbers, and sure enough, something clicked, and the door opened.

"Come on!" he shouted, and he and the others ran inside. They could hear Panther meowing upstairs.

"I'm going up," Narnia said. "After all he's _my_ cat!"

"I'll go with you," Coiley replied.

"I'll check out these mailboxes over here," Multi said. "How 'bout you, chief?"

"I'll help you investigate the mailboxes, Multi," Big D said.

Everyone agreed to this. Multi and Big D went over to the mailboxes, while Coiley and Narnia went upstairs to locate Panther. They went up at least two flights of stairs before they found Panther, except he was nestled in the arms of what looked like a girl, except it was more like a ghost, as she was glowing, and somewhat transparent.

"Uhhhh . . . . . ." Narnia said, slightly nervous. The glowing, ghostly figure looked up.

"Hello," she said, stroking Panther. "The cat is hungry. You should find something to feed him."

Coiley and Narnia looked at each other, and then went up another flight of stairs to look for some cat food, or something. On the next floor, the duo noticed some things behind some steel bars.

"Great," Narnia said, sarcastically. "Now how are we supposed to get anything out of there?"

"Let me handle this one, Narnia," Coiley said. "I can get whatever we need, and then some, easily!"

Coiley reached one of his arms through the openings in the bars, and pulled out not only some cat food, but a disk, and a ball of yarn as well. He also saw various pill bottles, and a piece of paper with various names on them. They were all struck through, except for one.

"Oksana I. Fedorova," he read. "It's weird that her name is the only name that isn't crossed out."

"Really," Narnia said. "This is just getting weirder and weirder."

Coiley nodded, and continued to search the area. He pulled out some more cat toys he happened to see lying there.

"Looks like someone here used to have a cat," he said.

"Good," Narnia said, taking the yarn and a toy mouse. "Maybe these'll occupy Panther while we're working."

Coiley scanned the area a little more. Once he was convinced it was all clear, he and Narnia went back downstairs. Narnia put the dish of food on the floor, opened a bag, and filled it with cat food. The apparition put Panther down, and the cat raced for the dish. The minute the apparition stood up, she looked directly at Coiley and Narnia, and then she started to disappear.

"Find the boy," she said, right before she faded out completely.

"I wonder if she meant Fluey?" Coiley asked.

"I'll bet anything she did," Narnia said.

Back downstairs, Multi and Big D were going through a thorough search of the mail boxes.

"This is really weird, chief," Multi said, pulling various pills out of various boxes. "Why would anyone leave single pills in different mail boxes?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," Big D said, pulling out a flyer for an energy drink. "E equals M C squared. Odd name for an energy drink."

"Pure energy for those who don't want to sleep at night," Multi said, reading the flyer. "I don't understand it, either, chief."

Multi and the chief continued looking through the mail boxes. Along with the pills and the flyer, they also found business cards, overdue bills, and three newspapers with the same headlines.

"Narcolepsy, the plague of the twenty-first century," Multi read.

"I'm getting a bad feeling," Big D said, as he pulled out a strange looking medallion. He found another flyer, picturing a man in a brown suit.

"What is your destiny," he read. "Only the Watchful Eye knows. I don't like the sound of that."

"I don't, either, chief," Multi said. "But these business cards are all for the Watchful Eye, whatever that is, and they have the same address as the clinic!"

"We have to find _some_one here who can help us."

"And I know exactly how to do that, Big D!"

Multi reached into the last mail box, and pulled out a set of keys. They were obviously the keys to the apartments in the building.

"Let's regroup with Coiley and Narnia," he said, "and see what else we can find here."

Big D nodded, and he and Multi went up the stairs. They found Coiley and Narnia sitting on the staircase, watching Panther finish his snack.

"Did you guys find anything?" Coiley asked.

"A set of keys," Multi said. "Maybe we'll be able to get into the apartments with them."

The group went to floor after floor, trying the keys in the apartments, but none of them worked, until they reached the third floor, when finally, a door unlocked.

"About time," Narnia said.

The group walked inside the apartment, and looked around. A TV set was on, but it was showing nothing but static. The walls were covered with pictures of butterflies.

"Whoever lives here must love flying insects," Coiley said. "Hey, there's a note on the TV."

"Hi, sleepyhead," Narnia read, as she grabbed the note. "That package you were waiting for is finally here. And stop hiding your diary in that stupid chest. L. U. Who's L. U.?"

"Good question," Multi said. "All we need is a good answer."

Big D walked over to the coffee table, and began searching it. There were clues that told him a woman lived in the apartment (such as a make up compact, a pair of earrings, a hairbrush, and a tube of lipstick), another newspaper, and a broken laptop. He came across an aromatic candle, and immediately pushed it aside, cringing at the scent coming from it.

"What's wrong, chief?" Multi asked.

"It smells like someone was mixing oil and ammonia," Big D explained.

"Yecchhh," Narnia grimaced. "That'll clean out your brain for sure!"

Coiley walked over to a bookshelf and began searching there. A red book caught his eye, and he grabbed it. Unfortunately, it was written in Russian, and he couldn't understand the title.

"What would you guys do without me?" Narnia said, taking the book. "How to survive an apocalypse."

"_What_?!" Multi shouted. "Who'd ever want a book like _that_?!"

"Someone who obviously believed that malarkey about the Mayans being right about twenty twelve," Narnia shrugged, throwing the book aside.

"Well, let's keep looking for clues," Coiley said.

Coiley continued searching the bookshelf. He found three dice, and a scroll, which had a drawing of a man in a brown suit, holding a cane in one hand, and he was holding the sphere in the other hand. A black cat was resting on the sphere.

"What in the world could _this_ mean?" he asked.

"Beats the heck outta me," Narnia said, shrugging.

"Maybe someone was trying to predict the future," Multi said, pulling out a card with a wizard on it, as well as a Magic 8 ball. "I don't get why this thing says U Lost on it. They don't normally say that!"

"Something fishy's going on here," Coiley commented.

"Here's another room," Multi said, as he tried to open the door. "Darn it, it's locked! Think you can get in through the keyhole, Coiley?"

"I'll give it a shot," Coiley said. "Rally ho!"

"Do you guys _always_ have to yell that whenever you do something?" Narnia asked, sounding annoyed.

Coiley didn't answer. He sprang toward the door, and tried to go in through the keyhole, but he only ended up smacking into the door.

_WHAM!_

"Ow!" Coiley shouted, upon impact.

"What happened?" Narnia asked.

"The key must still be in the keyhole," Multi sighed. "This happened when we were after the Crafty Clutcher. If only Fluey were here. Even if I had a bobby pin, I can't pick the lock if the key's still in there, either."

"Why don't you guys just break it down?" Narnia asked.

"There are more subtle ways of doing things, Ms. Veretennikov," Big D said, taking the newspaper he found from the table. "Fortunately, I know a little trick on how to get in there."

Big D walked over to the door, and slid the newspaper under it, leaving about a third of it on his side of the door.

"I'm going to need something to stick into this lock," he said.

"Wish I could help you, chief," Multi said. "I don't have any bobby pins on me. But I don't think it's going to do any good, anyway. If it were, I'd pick the lock myself!"

"Just trust me," Big D said. "I know what I'm doing."

"There are times when I doubt that," Narnia said.

Big D ignored the young woman, and grabbed a needle he saw on the bookshelf. Slowly, he stuck it into the lock. He maneuvered it around, and suddenly, a small _chink_ was heard from the other side of the door. Big D pulled the newspaper back out from under the door, and there was the key laying on it.

"Now why didn't _I _think of that?" Multi asked.

"My guess is because your sister has never locked her diary from the inside," Big D said. Then he looked through the keyhole to see if the coast was clear. He immediately saw a girl in the room, lying on the bed. She looked like she was asleep, but the chief didn't know if she was for sure.

"There's someone in there," he said. "It's a girl, but I don't know if she's still alive or not."

"What are we waiting for?" Multi said, grabbing the key, and sticking it in the lock. "Let's get in there!"

Multi unlocked the door, and the quartet immediately rushed inside. Big D immediately ran over to the girl, and touched her.

"Cold," he said. "Practically stone cold, and I can't hear her breathing . . . . . but I'm not sure if she's . . . . ."

"How much more evidence do you need?" Narnia asked.

"You know," Big D said, glaring at Narnia, "you're pouring the suspicion on yourself. I want to make absolutely sure this young lady is still alive. If you don't want me to check, then you _must_ know something's up."

"For the umpteenth time, I _don't_!" Narnia argued. "Get it through that thick skull of yours!"

"All right, all right, knock it off, you guys," Coiley said. Then he realized just _who_ he said that to. "Uhh, no offense, Big D, I was just . . . . ."

"I know," Big D sighed. "And you're right, Coil. Making accusations against Ms. Veretennikov will not do any good. My apologies."

"Yeah, well," was all Narnia said.

"I have an idea how we can find out if she's still alive," Multi said. "My pocket mirror. All we have to do is put it against her face. The mirror will fog up if she breathes on it."

"Good idea, Multi," Coiley said.

Multi took out his mirror, walked over to the girl, and held is pocket mirror at her face. A moment later, the mirror fogged up, but not very much.

"I think she's in a coma," he said, nervously.

"Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do," Big D sighed. "I'm not a doctor. I'm not even sure if she _can_ be helped by a doctor, anyway."

"Isn't there _any_thing we can do?" Coiley asked.

"I think the only thing we can do is look for more clues," Narnia said, shrugging.

Big D agreed, and the quartet began searching the room as thoroughly as possible. Coiley picked up a book, and found one passage highlighted. Since it was in Russian, he handed it to Narnia.

"What's this say?" he asked.

"Words of Confucius," Narnia said, taking the book. "The thing that caterpillar calls the end of the world, the teacher calls the butterfly."

"I think I know why he's called Confucius," Multi said. "He's so confusing!"

"I don't know what that means," Big D said. "And I don't think I even _want_ to know. Let's just keep looking."

The group continued to look around. They had to find some more clues in order to solve this mystery.

"Here's another medallion like the one we found in the mailbox, Big D," Multi said.

"And an ID card like the one we found at the train station," Coiley said. "Oksana Fedorova. And she works at the same clinic!"

"Hey, wasn't that the only name that _wasn't_ crossed out on that list we found?" Narnia asked.

"You're right, it was!" Coiley shouted.

"I think we're starting to get somewhere," Big D said. "But we _still_ need to find a map of the city."

"We'd better keep looking," Multi said.

The group continued searching. Multi had unearthed another "Watchful Eye" flyer, as well as a pager. He pushed the button on it, and the message read:

_The chessmaster releases you. You can obey your destiny._

"Hmm," he said. "Chess club spam, or cult delirium?"

"This is getting more and more frustrating," Big D groaned. "I want to know what in the world happened here, and _nothing_ we find is telling me anything!"

"Cool your jets a minute, chiefy-boy," Narnia said, picking up a card. "We've got an internet cafe close by here. All we've got to do is go there and maybe we'll get some answers!"

"Just one more thing," Big D said. "This locked box on the dresser. Multi, do you think you can unlock it?"

"I doubt it," Multi said, looking at the box. "The lock is too small for a bobby pin to fit in, even if I _did_ have one. It looks like the locking mechanism is more of the puzzle variety."

Multi looked at the box a little more closely, and saw the four card suits on it. Then he turned a knob, and the suits changed.

"Maybe if we match the card suits on the box, it'll open," Multi said. "You know, all diamonds, all spades, all hearts . . . . ."

"It's worth a shot," Coiley said.

Multi cracked his knuckles, and got to work turning the knobs on the box. When he got one suit, one of the locks unlocked.

"Great," he groaned. "I'm gonna have to match up _all_ the suits after all. This could take awhile, gang."

The others sighed. It was about all they could do. Multi shrugged, and continued maneuvering knobs. The most frustrating thing about the box was that one knob turned at least three discs. That was what made it difficult. Finally, after a _lot_ of maneuvering, he managed to unlock the entire box.

"Do me a favor when this is over, chief," he said.

"What's that, Multi?" Big D asked.

"Don't _ever_ tell my sister about this kind of lock!" Multi shouted. "If she figures out how to get one like it for her diary, I'll never be able to get into it!"

Big D stifled a laugh, and shook his head. It was, after all, typical brotherly-sisterly "love" Multi was talking about. In any case, since Multi still had the box, he started going through it.

"Speaking of diaries," he said, "here's one. I'll bet it's hers. Here's the last page."

Multi handed the diary to the chief, so he could see the last page of it.

"I can't do like this any longer," he read. "They make me do terrible things. I lured in all my relatives and friends. Why are we helping this disaster? What is the good is it? But I could not refuse. The chessmaster was so convincing. But now I am free. Dear diary, goodbye."

"Strange that it's in English," Coiley said. "But then again, this whole _place_ is strange!"

"That's not the only thing that's strange," Multi said. "She's got a man's watch, and a man's ring and cufflinks in here. Not to mention hospital labels."

"And several pills, as well as a syringe," Big D said.

"Is it me, or is this case getting stranger and stranger?" Coiley asked.

"It ain't just you, bubelah," Narnia said, pulling out a flash drive. "But this can come in handy in case we find a computer."

The group walked out of the apartment building and out to the car. Multi tried to start it up, but it wouldn't budge. No matter how many times he tried, it just wouldn't go.

"No use, it's dead," he sighed.

"We'll have to walk, then," Big D said.

"According to the address, it's not that far from here," Narnia said, picking up Panther. "Let's move out, troops."

Big D and the two Impossibles followed Narnia's lead. It seemed like she knew where she was going, after all. And, if they wanted to get anywhere in this case, it was about all they _could_ do.


	13. Logging On

The group walked into the internet cafe, and found the place nearly deserted. There _was_ someone there, but it looked like he had fallen asleep at the keyboard. All of the computer screens had what computer aficionados refer to as the Windows "Blue Screen of Death."

"Hey, buddy," Narnia said, poking the man sleeping. "You awake?"

"I don't think so," Big D said, snapping his fingers in the man's face. "I don't think we'll be able to get any information out of him. We'll have to check the computers."

"You think any of these things work?" Multi asked.

"There's only one way to find out," Coiley replied. He began walking around the room, pushing the control, alt, and delete keys on all of the keyboards. Unfortunately, none of them got rid of the "Blue Screen of Death."

"They're all frozen," he said.

"There's got to be at least _one_ that works!" Multi shouted. He began fiddling with his wrist communicator, but found that wasn't working, either.

Finally, Coiley came to the last computer in the cafe. he pressed control, alt, delete, and the "Blue Screen of Death" disappeared.

"Who's got the flash drive?" he asked, as the computer restarted. "I found one that works!"

"Here," Narnia said, giving the blond Impossible the drive.

Coiley stuck the flash drive into the computer, and then clicked on the icon once it came up. The first thing he saw was a patient list for a mental clinic. All of them were listed has having narcolepsy, and in a coma. Then he clicked on a yellow triangular icon that had an exclamation point in it.

"Network connection error," he said. "We've got to figure out how to connect to the internet."

"Let's look around the desk," Multi suggested. "One of them _must_ be an administrator's. Maybe there are some instructions around here somewhere."

The quartet immediately began searching. Coiley found out that he was at the administrator's desk already, so he looked with earnest. The first thing he found was a note.

"Guys, I'm joining them," he read. "They offer the opportunity to meet with destiny honorably. We all know this is the end. Your administrator."

"Sounds like this place is filled with a bunch of doomsayers," Narnia said.

"I wonder how many more notes like that we're going to find," Big D said. "This is just like the last time. Cryptic messages and all!"

"Here's another one of those eye medallion things," Coiley said, pulling something out from underneath the desk. "I get the feeling there's some kind of cult at work behind this, chief."

"I think you're right," Big D said.

"Hey, check this out," Narnia said, pulling out a letter. "It's a notice from the Ministry of Defense. They've ordered the main regional internet router to be turned off to prevent misrepresentation, disinformation, and panic from spreading. Huh. I wonder what this is about?"

"Do you think we'll _ever_ find out what's going on here?" Coiley asked.

"Hopefully," Big D said, heaving a sigh. "Right now, all we can do is just wait it out. The first priority is to find that clinic."

The others agreed, and continued looking around the cafe. The group walked around the computers, and tested the CD-Rom drives. Luckily, those were still working. Multi managed to find a disc in one of them. It was labeled "Admin."

"Hey, Coiley!" he shouted. "Check this disc in the computer. There may be something on it!"

"We'll have to repair the network first," Narnia said. "My guess we'll have to start by taping up these wires. Major fire hazard if I ever saw one."

"We'll need some electrical tape," Big D said, trying to open a cabinet. "And, as luck would have it, this thing's locked."

"Stand back, Pops," Narnia said, picking up a fire axe from the floor. "I'll take care of this."

Big D took a couple of steps back. He knew exactly what Narnia was planning with that axe. She swung forward, smashing the door to the cabinet with it, as hard as she could. Once she got the door open, she began searching.

"Here's your electrical tape," she said, tossing the roll over her shoulder. "Weird stuff in here, too. Tranquilizer darts, and a list of names, all crossed out."

"I wonder if these people are victims or survivors?" Multi asked, looking at the list.

"We'd better fix the network so we can find out," Coiley said.

"Here, fellas, you might need this," Narnia said, handing a notebook labeled "Passwords" to Multi. "Now's not really the best time to become a hacker."

"Wait a minute," Big D said, reaching into the cabinet, and pulling out a stack of pamphlets. "These look like those flyers Multi and I found at the apartment building."

"Check out this newspaper clipping," Narnia said, taking something out of the cabinet. "Looks like this Watchful Eye or whatever it's called, is behind at least _some_ of this. Look at all these flyers, they must've used this place to print them."

"And I'll bet anything these tranquilizer darts facilitate the comas," Big D said, pulling out a pair of scissors. "All right, boys, I hope you'll be able to fix the network because I don't have the slightest idea of where to start."

"Right, Big D," Multi said, handing Coiley the electrical tape.

Coiley immediately got to work repairing the severed wires. Once he was finished, he stretched his arm over, and flipped the switch on the wall. Unfortunately, the minute he did, sparks were flying, and they struck some of the papers inside the cabinet, causing them to catch fire.

"Holy horrendous!" Coiley shouted. "What did I do wrong?!"

"We've gotta put this fire out!" Multi shouted. He grabbed a nearby fire extinguisher, and immediately got to work, dousing out the fire. It took a little while, but he finally managed to get it out.

"At least the cables aren't _too_ fried," Multi said. "Maybe we can still get the network fixed."

Coiley nodded, and put the disc into the computer. A screen came up that read "Click button for network recovery." Coiley clicked on the button, and all the computers in the cafe unfroze, and shifted out of the "Blue Screen of Death."

"We've got to check what's on these things," Multi said.

The others agreed, and they began looking at all of the computers. Narnia found one with an email, reading:

_Thanks to you, I went to the club instead of lying down and going to sleep last night. Half the city never woke up. I hope you receive this e-mail. Do not sleep! Something is wrong with our world . . . . your seaside friend, Roman_

"Hey, chiefy, check out this," she said. "What do you make of it?"

"Another cryptic message," Big D said. "This just gets stranger, and stranger.

"Here's a news site on this computer," Multi said. "It says that bidding for the Tokyo stock market has been cancelled, and another story talks about narcolepsy cases all over the world, with people falling into comas."

"Here's another site pulled up, chief," Coiley said. "It looks like an online pharmacy, advertising energy drinks, something called 'pure energy' injections, and pills."

"Here's what looks like a chat room session," Narnia said, walking over to another computer. "And check this out, the printer icon is flashing!"

"Better print out what's there," Big D said. "It _could_ be useful to us."

The others agreed, and Narnia clicked the flashing printer icon. A moment later, something printed. Big D grabbed it, looked at it, and smiled.

"It's another piece of a map," he said. "Where's the other one we found at that abandoned store?"

"I think we left it in the car," Multi said.

"We'd better go get it before Panther tears it to shreds!" Narnia shouted.

The others agreed, but before they could do anything about it, they heard a strange noise outside. It sounded like twisting metal. Immediately, the group ran out of the internet cafe as fast as they could. It was obvious that there was someone in the city that _wasn't_ sleeping.


	14. The Clinic

The group raced back to where they had left the car, only to find it on it's side against the bar, and smashed beyond repair. Panther meowed pitifully, and crawled out from around the corner. Narnia immediately picked him up, and began stroking his back.

"Poor baby," she said, soothingly. "Did something scare you? It's all right, baby. Momma's here now."

"What the heck happened?" Multi asked. "It looks like the Incredible Hulk was here!"

"We'd better get to work investigating," Coiley said.

The others agreed, and got to work. The first thing the two Impossibles found was what appeared to be a transmitter of some kind, but they couldn't understand a thing that was coming out of it.

"You think it's Russian?" Multi asked.

"No, I think it's gibberish," Coiley replied. "Maybe we're getting a bad signal or something."

"Here's another one of those things over here," Narnia said, picking up another one. "Same sounds as the other one's making."

While Narnia and the boys were trying to figure out the transmitters (and Panther trying to investigate them with his nose), Big D walked over to the center of the street, and saw a card or something with what looked like an eye drawn on it. But the minute he picked it up, he began to feel strange. The scene began to fade into that strange pinkish-purple again. This time, the chief saw an image of the world, and heard what sounded like someone blowing out a candle or something. When that happened, several silhouettes of people just seemed to fly off. Then the image of the world transformed into that eye shape.

"What's . . . . . happening?" he asked, straining somewhat.

"Oh no, not again!" Narnia groaned. "Come on, boys, help me find some more of those energy drinks before he falls asleep!"

Immediately, the two Impossibles raced into the abandoned store, and grabbed as many cans of that strange energy drink as they could. It took about three of them before Big D started to come out of that weird trance he had been in.

"I'm getting pretty tired of this," he said.

"You and me both," Narnia commented.

"You okay, Big D?" Multi asked.

"I will be," the chief said. "Once this entire mess is over!"

"Us too," Coiley said. "Come on, we'd better continue looking for clues."

The group searched the wreckage, but they were only able to unearth three syringes and a man's sneaker.

"This looks like the kind of sneakers some of the orderlies and male nurses at St. Mercy's wear," Multi said.

"There's one more thing here," Coiley said, looking at the car roof. "It looks like blood."

"That's not a good sign," Multi said.

"Don't worry, guys, I'm prepared," Narnia said. "I've got my knife, and I took the liberty of loading that security guard's gun and taking it with me."

"What's this up here?" Coiley asked, stretching his arm toward the back of the car.

"It looks like an oxygen cylinder," Multi said.

"Yeah, but it's empty," Coiley said.

"We've got to get inside the car," Big D said. "I have a feeling there's more to be found."

"How're ya gonna do _that_?" Narnia asked. "You got a Swiss Army can opener or something?"

Big D ignored the young woman, and looked around the wreckage site a bit. Finally, he unearthed a crowbar, and smashed what was left of the rear windshield. Then he turned to the two Impossibles.

"Multi," he said. "I think you're the best suited for this one."

"What do you mean, chief?" Multi asked.

"He means you're the only one skinny enough to get into the car through that window," Narnia said.

"Well, if you think so," Multi said, shrugging. Then he carefully crawled through the windshield.

"If I find anything, I'll hand it out to you guys," he said. "Stand by!"

Multi looked around the car, and found that it looked almost as bad as the outside of it did! He couldn't find much of anything useful, but he did manage to find a compass, the piece of the map, the ID card the group found at the train station, and the sphere. He grabbed all three of them, and crawled out of the car.

"This was about all I could find," he said.

"I wish I could get rid of this thing," Big D said, taking the sphere. The minute he did, an image flashed inside of it. It looked like the image of the man on the ID card.

"Odd," the chief said. "I thought this thing wasn't working anymore."

"Forget it," Narnia said. "We've got both map pieces, so let's figure out how to get going!"

Coiley and Multi took both map pieces and stuck them together. Then they handed them to Narnia so she could do the translating. She studied the ID badge, and then the map. Then she took out a tube of lipstick from her ammo belt, and circled a building on it.

"That's where we're going," she said. "And lucky for us, it isn't far!"

"Come on, we don't have a moment to lose!" Big D shouted.

And with that, the group ran off. They reached the mental clinic in no time, and walked inside, only to find the place a complete mess. This didn't surprise them. The only other person there was a woman laying on the couch in the lobby. Like all the others, she, too, was in a strange coma. The group began searching the lobby. Big D immediately ran to a door with bars on it. He grabbed the handle, and turned it, but it wouldn't budge.

"Drat it!" he shouted, frustratedly. "Locked!"

"The key's got to be around here somewhere," Multi said. "Let's look behind the desk."

"Brilliant deduction, Sherlock," Narnia said, somewhat sarcastically.

Big D and the two Impossibles ignored her, and began searching around, not only looking for the keys to unlock the door, but also anything else that would either help them, or give them information about what was going on.

"Here's another Watchful Eye amulet thing, chief," Coiley said.

"Look at this card," Multi said. "Announcement to all hunters. The last vigilante is Vladimir Rozhkov. He will bring in the last ones, ensuring that the rules of the universe are being complied with. It's signed the chessmaster."

"And, unless I miss my guess," Big D said, "according to the note we found at the train station, we are the last ones, and apparently, we are violating the rules of the universe."

"This chessmaster guy's obviously a few sandwiches shy of a picnic," Narnia said. "What the heck does that mean, anyway?"

"I'd love to inform you, Ms. Veretennikov, but I don't have the faintest notion, either," Big D said.

"Let's keep looking," Coiley said.

The group continued searching. Multi picked up a newspaper clipping, but it wasn't much of one. It was just a picture of a man standing next to that strange "Watchful Eye" picture, and the only text on it was "ulost" over and over and over again. Multi had to put it down and squeeze his eyes shut for a moment.

"Boy!" he shouted. "That thing'll give you eye strain for sure!"

"What is this, anyway?" Big D asked, looking at the clipping.

Suddenly, the text switched from the repeated "ulost" to what looked like a regular newspaper article. It talked about an extremist organization known as "Vigilantes," and how their leaders had a dream where this Chessmaster explained rules of the universe, and why everyone would be forced into a coma. The organizations had been outlawed, since it was believed they were responsible for putting people to sleep.

"And we're practically knocking on their door," Big D said, under his breath.

"What did you say, chief?" Multi asked, looking over the chief's shoulder. All the redhead could see on the clipping was the text "ulost."

"Nothing," Big D said, putting down the clipping. "Nothing at all."

The group continued searching the desk. Narnia was examining the cabinet behind it. It had a glass door, but it was locked, and nobody could see what was inside of it.

"We've got to open this sucker," she said. "The question is how."

"Like this," Coiley said, picking up a cane from the floor. He smashed the door with the cane, but all that was inside it were syringes, cotton balls, bandages, and bottles of colored medicine.

"That's not going to help much," Multi sighed. "And the only thing around this desk are energy drinks and energy bars. There's no key in sight!"

"I have an idea," Narnia said, picking up an oxygen cylinder. "This'll make a great missile!"

Narnia climbed over the desk, and set the oxygen tank on a nearby table. Then she took the cane from Coiley.

"Stand back, boys," she said. "I'm not exactly sure _what's_ going to happen!"

Coiley picked up Panther, and he, Multi, and Big D took a couple of steps back. Narnia whacked the oxygen tank with the cane, and the tank flew right into the door. The impact was so hard, it knocked it off it's hinges.

"You did it!" Coiley shouted. "Let's go!"

Unfortunately, that pinkish-purple glow began to overtake the chief's vision again. This time, he could make out a silhouette of a man. He had a very deep, evil sounding laugh, and his fingers were made up of medical syringes. Then, he raised his arms, and two more arms appeared. And all four hands had fingers made of syringes. Then the scene faded, and Big D began to sink to his knees.

"These . . . . . visions," he said. "They're getting . . . . . harder to . . . . . resist . . . ."

"Chief!" Multi shouted. "Guys, we've gotta _do_ something!"

"Hang on!" Narnia shouted. She reached into the cabinet and grabbed a syringe, and three of the medicine bottles. "I know what'll give him a boost!"

Narnia put the syringe in the bottles one at time, to extract the liquid in them. She did this until the liquid in the syringe turned pinkish-orange in color. Then, she immediately rolled up Big D's sleeve, and injected him with the concoction. Immediately, the chief began to come out of it.

"Wow, that was a close one!" Coiley shouted.

"Are you all right, boss?" Multi asked.

"I think so," Big D said. "I'm not sure why I'm seeing these hallucinations, but they're _extremely_ intense. Thank you, Ms. Veretennikov."

"Skip it," Narnia said. "We've got bigger fish to fry."

The group went forward, and found themselves in what looked like a security office. Multi turned on the lights, and looked around.

"Maybe it's a good thing we're in here," Coiley said. "We don't know who, or _what_ is lurking around. We can use the monitors to check the place out."

"Looks like only one monitor's working," Multi said.

"We can remedy that," Big D said. "All we have to do is fix the control panel."

Big D opened the panel, and reconnected the wires. As soon as he did, all the monitors lit up with images of the hospital rooms. Then he sat down at the control panel, and began searching them. He figured Fluey and Natasha had to be in one of them. He scanned every single room with the camera, until he came across monitor nine, which was the last one. There was Fluey, laying on the bed in the room, somewhat propped up on his arm.

"There's Fluey," Multi said. "But there's no sign of Natasha. And it looks like Fluey's about ready to fall asleep any second!"

"And if he falls asleep," Big D said, "he's likely to fall into that coma that everyone in town seems to be in."

"Gallopin' guitars!" Coiley shouted. "We've got to do something!"

"I don't know how much longer he'll be able to hold out," Multi said. "I just hope it's not too late."

"I just hope that maniac doesn't catch on," Narnia said. Then she pulled the security guard's gun out. "But I don't think he'll be a problem, anyway."

"If it's all the same to you, Ms. Veretennikov," Big D said. "I'd rather you _not_ use that gun."

"We've gotta use _some_thing to defend ourselves!" Narnia argued.

"How about a tranquilizer gun?" Multi asked, walking over to the shelf.

"Excellent suggestion," Big D said. "Ms. Veretennikov, would you care to do the honors?"

"I gotta see if it works first," Natasha said, taking the gun. She eyed a dart board on the wall, and rummaged for some ammo. Once she loaded the gun, she fired at the dart board. The tranquilizer dart hit the target dead center.

"Okay," she said. "Now, we're ready!"

The group then ran out of the security office as fast as they could. Big D could only hope they weren't too late.


	15. Maniac

Once our heroes reached Fluey's room, they found that he wasn't there anymore.

"That maniac must've moved Fluey to another room," Multi said.

"We've got to hurry and find him," Big D said.

Before they could do anything, the group heard something from the hallway. They ran out, and saw the kidnapper directly down the hall. He stood there, and laughed maniacally.

"Will stay!" he shouted. "Alone! No one! Just me! Like! Chessmaster! Said!"

"_What_?!" Coiley shouted, confused. "What does that mean?"

"I'm afraid he might be another victim of that Order of the Watchful Eye cult," Big D said. "In the state of mind he's in, he could be a _very_ dangerous opponent. We'll have to be extremely cautious."

"No, kidding," Narnia said. "He's armed! I'll have to shoot him first. Stand back!"

Narnia immediately aimed the tranquilizer gun, and fired. It was a direct hit. The man staggered a little, then aimed his gun at the ceiling, and fired. The sprinklers came on, and the man ran off.

"He's getting away!" Multi shouted.

"Forget it," Narnia said. "That tranquilizer I shot him with should be enough for now. It'll give us some time to find Natasha and that grandson of yours, chief."

"Right," Big D said. "But we have to take care of the sprinkler system first."

"There's no time!" Narnia shouted.

"And there definitely _won't_ be for any of us if we don't turn them off!" Multi shouted, pointing to a corner. "The water's conducting electricity. If we try to search for Fluey and Natasha in these conditions, we're likely to get electrocuted!"

The group searched the corridor, and found several pipes on the wall, the tap was missing a valve. Luckily, it was on the floor. Coiley spotted it, screwed it on, and turned off the sprinkler.

"Okay," he said. "Now let's get moving!"

Multi went to one room, and tried opening the door, but it was locked. The other rooms in the corridor were locked as well, not that it didn't surprise our heroes.

"We may need an access card to get in," Big D said.

"Here's one," Narnia said. "I don't see any others, unfortunately."

"Meaning we can't split up to cover more ground," Multi said.

"Maybe it's for the best," Big D said, as Narnia swiped the access card into the card reader of one of the rooms. "With that maniac on the loose, it might be better for us to stick together."

The others agreed on that one. Narnia punched in the passcode on the door, and it opened.

"How did you know the code?" Multi asked.

"The buttons on the keypad were dirty," Narnia said, shrugging.

The group walked into the room, only to find a man in that strange coma, as well as another key card on the floor. They took the card, and moved to another room. The next one they found was completely empty, except for another key card. In the next room, along with a third key card, they found a nurse who had been knocked out cold.

"I really wish there was something we could do for these people," Coiley sighed.

"Me too," Multi said. "But we can't."

"Not at the moment, at least," Big D said. "We'd better keep looking for Fluid and Miss Glamorski."

Big D took the key card, and swiped it into the reader on the last door in the hallway. He was getting a nervous feeling in his stomach when he punched in the passcode. He opened the door, and found an altar of some kind, as well as Fluey sitting on the floor against the wall, looking like he was going to pass out any minute.

"Leaping long plays!" Coiley shouted. "He's almost asleep!"

"Fluey, wake up!" Multi shouted right into Fluey's ear. Then he shaking his team mate's shoulder as hard as he could.

"Ooohh . . . . ." Fluey moaned.

"It's not going to work," Multi said. "He can barely hold on!"

"We need some of those pills," Narnia said. "And we'd better hurry, or else we're going to lose him!"

Immediately, Big D started to search the room. He was determined to find something, _any_thing that would wake Fluey up.

"Hey, chief, look at this!" Coiley shouted. "It looks like some kind of bomb!"

"This Order of the Watchful Eye must be some kinda terrorist group," Narnia said, picking up a map of the city. "It looks like they set off bombs of sleeping gas in public places around here."

"I'll deal with that later," Big D said. "I have more important things to worry about right now!"

Coiley and Multi immediately forgot the Watchful Eye for a moment, and continued their search for pills. They knew Big D's first priority was Fluey. Finally, the quartet managed to find some green pills, and some yellow pills, laying on the altar, as well as a glass of water.

"That's not enough," Narnia said. "This kid's gonna need a _lot_ more to help him!"

"We'd better search the other rooms," Big D said. "And this time, we ought to split up!"

"But what about that maniac?" Multi asked.

"You two can handle him with your powers, I'm sure," Big D said. "Ms. Veretennikov, give me the gun. I might need it if I run into him. You stay here with Fluid."

"Forget that, Jack!" Narnia said. "I ain't playing no nursemaid to no stupid kid! What's the matter, Pops? Don't think I can handle it just 'cause I'm a girl?"

"Ms. Veretennikov, I am not implying anything of the sort! I am just saying . . . . ."

"Chief, there's no time to argue!" Coiley shouted.

"All right, all right," Big D said. "I'll stay here with Fluid, then. The rest of you go find those pills!"

Narnia and the two Impossibles immediately raced out of the room as fast as they could in order to search the other three rooms for more pills. Fluey looked about ready to drop any second. Big D grabbed hold of his shoulder, and shook him a little, in order to keep him awake.

"Hang in there, Fluid," he said. "Please, try to hold on!"

Coiley bounced into the first room as quickly as he could, and began searching it with the proverbial fine tooth comb. He dug out some pills, as well as a gun, a knife, brass knuckles, and adhesive tape.

"Boy, this nurse was a one woman army!" he shouted. "I wonder how many people she forced to sleep?"

Coiley continued looking for anything useful, and he unearthed a crumpled up piece of paper. He unfolded it, and looked at it.

"Chessmaster has given me a higher purpose in this life," he read aloud. "And I enjoyed the work. Thank you, my lord. Good grief! We've _got_ to stop this!"

Coiley continued looking, growing more and more nervous by the second, until he managed to find a drug guide.

"Warning," he read. "Do not mix these pills, or else sleep deprivation will occur. Exactly what we need! Rally ho!"

And with that, Coiley took the pills he found, along with the drug guide, and sprang his way out of the room.

Meanwhile, Multi was searching another one of the rooms, also with the proverbial fine tooth comb, also growing quite anxious. He found some more pills, as well as a pad of paper with a note on it.

_I can't do this any longer. I intentionally shoot past people. I cannot with good conscience put them to sleep like dogs. But I'm afraid they already suspect this. Soon I will be their target._

"Hmm," Multi said. "It looks like not all Order members are pure evil. I'd better get back there with these pills and show this note to Big D!"

And with that, Multi ran out of the room, and back to the altar. Coiley and Narnia were already there. Thankfully, Fluey was still hanging on, but only by a thread.

"These were all the pills I could find, chief," Multi said.

"Hopefully, they'll be enough," Big D said, taking the pills, and putting them into Fluey's hand. "Take these, Fluid."

"Unnnggghhh . . . . ." Fluey mumbled. He was far too drowsy to even think straight!

"Right now, Fluid!" Big D shouted. "That's an order!"

Though drowsy, Fluey put the pills in his mouth, took the glass of water, and swallowed them. The others waited nervously, hoping they weren't too late. Fluey stifled a yawn, and shook his head out.

"Wow . . . . ." he said. "What just happened?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Big D said, heaving a sigh of relief. "Are you all right? I was worried sick about you!"

"I'm okay," Fluey said. "I think. I mean . . . ."

Before Fluey could go on, the door suddenly fell off it's hinges and crashed to the floor. The psycho kidnapper then ran inside, and aimed his gun. Immediately, Narnia grabbed hers, and fired a tranquilizer dart at the psycho. He immediately ran out of the room.

"I'll take care of this one, chiefy-boy," she said. "These darts should pacify him eventually. As my grandfather used to say, sleeping dogs never bite!"

And with that, Narnia ran out of the room. She saw the psycho down the hallway, aiming his gun. Quickly, she fired the tranquilizer dart in rapid succession, until the maniac ran into the empty room our heroes had found earlier. She followed him inside, and fired the final dart from the gun. Once it hit, the psycho dropped his gun, and collapsed onto the floor.

"Sweet dreams, Sleeping Ugly," Narnia said. Then she walked out of the room, to report to Big D and the boys. Surprisingly, they weren't in there.

"Huh," she said. "Where'd they go?"

"We're up on the roof," Multi said, coming into the room, carrying Panther. "Fluey wasn't in any shape to fight, and Big D wanted to get him out of here, so we went up onto the roof."

Narnia nodded, took Panther from the red-haired Impossible, and followed him up to the roof, where Coiley, Fluey, and Big D were waiting. It had started to rain while they were up there. Panther jumped from Narnia's arms, and made himself comfortable in Fluey's lap, purring contently.

"How did it go?" Big D asked.

"No more psycho," Narnia said, shrugging.

"That's good," Fluey said, shivering slightly. He began stroking the black cat from his ears to his tail.

"You okay there, kid?" Narnia asked.

"Yeah," Fluey said. "Maybe just a little cold and tired."

"And extremely shaken," Big D said.

"There's a vending machine inside," Coiley said. "Let's go see what's in it."

"Maybe we'll find something that'll warm you up, Fluey," Multi said.

"While you two are doing that, I'll look for Natasha," Narnia said. "You haven't seen her, have you, kid?"

"Not since the train station," Fluey said. "The last thing I remember was you guys going into the office, and then someone grabbed me, covered my mouth, and shot me with a needle. I blanked out after that. When I came to, I was in this hospital."

"You'd think one of 'em would try to get our attention," Narnia said. "I highly doubt Senor Psychotic inside could grab them both and inject them both at the same time. Unless he was part octopus or something. Well, I'm gonna go look for Natasha anyway. You want to come, chief?"

"No thank you," Big D said, immediately. "I'm staying right here."

"Meow," Panther said.

"And apparently, so is your cat," Big D said.

"Suit yourself," Narnia said, shrugging. She went back inside, and found the boys standing by the vending machine, staring at the floor.

"What's the matter, fellas?" she asked. Then she saw what the boys were staring at. It was a skeleton.

"Never mind," Narnia said. "Yeeecchhh! Is that thing real?"

"I don't know," Multi said. "I don't think I want to get close enough to find out!"

"Me neither," Coiley said.

"Well, who cares?" Narnia said, kicking the skeleton away. "Felt like plastic. There ya go, boys."

"Thanks," Multi said, as Narnia left to look for Natasha.

Coiley and Multi managed to find a couple of Russian coins on the floor (which was probably a good thing, since the machine probably wouldn't take their American money), and fed them into the machine.

"Here's something," Coiley said. "Relax Tea. My mom always says there's nothing like a cup of hot tea to relax you."

"And I'd say Fluey definitely needs some relaxing," Multi said, pushing the button. Once the machine was done processing the tea, Multi grabbed it, and the boys went back up to the roof.

"Here you go, Fluey," Multi said, handing his dark-haired team mate the cup.

"Thanks," Fluey said, drinking the tea slowly.

"So now what do we do, chief?" Multi asked.

"Meow," Panther said.

"I think I have to agree with that," Big D said, scratching Panther's forehead. The boys just laughed, and watched the sun set behind the buildings.

"At least things have calmed down now," Big D said. "We'll have to think a little about what to do next."

"Maybe we should wait for Narnia to come back," Coiley suggested. "She might know what to do."

"Meow," Panther said.

"I think he agrees," Fluey said, scratching Panther under the chin.

Narnia returned about a half hour later, looking concerned, and confused.

"Weird, just . . . . . weird!" she shouted. "I checked every single floor of this place, every nook and cranny, and Natasha just isn't _any_where around! There aren't any signs of her, either!"

"You don't think something might've happened do you?" Multi asked.

Before anyone could answer, there was a crash of thunder, and a flash of lightning. The wind began to blow violently, and some sort of purple light was spinning in the middle of the sky. It grew bigger and bigger, until it practically swallowed up our heroes, and they found themselves in some kind of vortex.

"What's going on now?!" Narnia asked.

"I don't know . . . . ." Big D said, uncertainly. "But I'm not sure I want to find out!"

"You will know soon," a voice said.

"Who said that?" Multi asked.

"I did," the voice said again, and the image of a bespectacled man in a suit appeared before our heroes. Once he appeared, the vortex stopped suddenly, but our heroes found they were now falling. Multi and Coiley tried to use their powers, but nothing was happening.

"Our powers have konked out!" Multi shouted. Just as he said this, he and Coiley reverted to their rock and roll forms, and no matter how many times they pushed the buttons on their communicators to transform back to their superhero identities, they couldn't.

"Somebody better do something fast!" Narnia shouted.

"I intend to," the strange man said. He held out his hand, and caught Fluey in it.

"Hey, man, what's the big idea?" Fluey asked. The man said nothing, and closed his palm, right over the dark-haired Impossible. When he opened his palm once more, Fluey was gone.

"Galloping guitars!" Coiley shouted.

"I am the Chessmaster," the man said. "The one who wishes to bring good to Earth. And you will help me."

"Why should we?" Multi asked.

"Because the most valuable thing in your chief's life is now in my hands," the Chessmaster said.

"What?!" Big D and the two Impossibles shouted.

"Who exactly _are_ you?!" Big D demanded. "And furthermore, _what_ are you?!"

"Oh you're sure to find out," the Chessmaster said, as he began to fade out. "Soon. Very soon. Have a good morning."

And with that, the Chessmaster disappeared, and our heroes crash landed to the ground. Everything around them went black.


	16. Strange New World

Our heroes began coming to their senses shortly afterwards. They weren't sure where they were now.

"Meow," Panther said, tapping Big D's leg with his paw.

"Ooohhh, my aching head," Big D groaned.

"My aching everything else!" Narnia shouted. "That was a rough landing!"

"I wonder where we are," Coiley said.

"Looks like some kind of desert," Multi said. "I have to tell you, Big D, this case just keeps getting stranger and stranger!"

"Don't I know it," Big D said.

"So . . . ." Narnia said, picking up her cat. "What do we do now?"

"We start looking for Fluid, that's what!" Big D shouted. "I don't care what that Chessmaster's game is, mark my words, I'll get him for this!"

"And just how do you propose we find this Chessmaster, anyway?" Narnia asked.

"Start looking for clues," Big D said.

And with that, our heroes began looking around their whereabouts, even though none of them knew exactly what to look for. All any of them could come up with was a key, and a blow torch.

"I wonder where this fits," Coiley said, picking up the key.

"Maybe this door," Narnia said. "It's locked, anyway."

"Let's give it a shot," Multi said, taking the key. He stuck it in the lock, turned it, and opened the door. There wasn't much inside, except what looked like some kind of a house.

"I don't think anyone's home," Coiley said.

"Meow," Panther agreed, and he jumped onto a chair and made himself comfortable.

"We might as well take a look around," Multi said. "Who knows what we'll find that'll be useful."

And, once again, our heroes began searching every nook and cranny of that small house. Coiley came across a selection of trophies, and investigated them.

"I'm getting a creepy feeling, chief," he said. "These trophies have all our names on the back of them, and they're for stuff like curiosity, courage, self-control, resistance, strategem, fidelity, and passion."

"What could they mean?" Multi asked.

"I don't know," Big D said. "This is just like the last time, one mystery right after another!"

Before anyone could say anything, a bell rang. It sounded like it came from a mailbox in the door. Big D walked over, and took an envelope out from it.

"I have a feeling whoever . . . . or _what_ever delievered this has gone," he said, opening the envelope. He pulled out an old, 1980's style floppy disk.

"Man, how primitive!" Narnia shouted, scoffing. "Those things haven't been used since the days of Cabbage Patch Kids and Rubik's Cubes!"

"Nevertheless, it _could_ prove to be useful," Big D said. "I'm not sure exactly, _how_, though . . . ."

"Hey, chief, check out this machine!" Coiley said. "There's a weird slot in it."

"Looks like it could fit a floppy disk," Multi said. "Let's check it out!"

The group walked over to the machine, and stuck the disk in it. It began to boot up, much like disks used with the old Apple IIe computer systems.

"If we wind up with _Oregon Trail_, I'm going to scream," Narnia said.

The disk finished booting, and an image of the Chessmaster appeared. Narnia made a face.

"I think I'm going to scream, anyway," she said.

"Please don't," Big D said, rolling his eyes.

"Welcome, Number six-three-four-seven-zero-two-seven-one-three-seve n," the Chessmaster said. "And to one-three-nine, one-four-zero, and one-four-one as well."

"What happened to one-three-eight?" Narnia asked.

"We have been waiting for all four of you," the Chessmaster said. "You are the last ones. Starting now, the life support of your kind is on hold, at least until we can determine the reasons for failure. You must report to my office for further guidance. First, you must find the instructions in this room. See you on the other side."

"I really don't like the sound of that," Multi said.

"Amen, brother," Narnia replied. "Well, if we want to get outta here, we'd better find those instructions."

The group looked around the house, and found next to nothing, until they came to a large trunk in the corner of the room. Thankfully, it was unlocked, and the two Impossibles searched through it.

"I found something," Coiley said. "Standard procedures for new arrivals to the new world. First, you must understand nothing."

"_That_ shouldn't be too hard," Narnia said.

"Second, you must find the safe house," Coiley went on.

"I don't know if this is it, or if it's something else," Multi said. "What else does it say, Coiley?"

"Then, you must reach the edge," Coiley said. "Not too elaborate, are they, chief?"

"What else can we do?" Big D sighed.

"Hey, check this!" Narnia shouted, suddenly. She pulled a handful of what looked like dog tags out of the trunk. "Numbers six-three-four-seven-zero-two-seven-one-three-seve n through one-four-one. And, one-three-eight _is_ included here."

"One-three-eight must be Fluey," Coiley said.

"That's not all I found," Narnia said, pulling a piece of paper out of the trunk. "It looks like a drawing of this room. And there's a red X by the chair."

"Help me move it, Multi," Coiley said. "There's probably something under it!"

The two Impossibles ran over to the chair, and pushed it. Panther meowed in protest. He didn't like to be disturbed during one of his cat naps.

"There _is_ something," Big D said, grabbing a note from the floor.

"What's it say?" Coiley asked.

"First of all, thank you for stopping me," Big D read. "Now that I have my mind back, I am starting to realize all the bad things I've done. But the most important for you to know is that the Chessmaster cannot be trusted. Ever. Everything is not as bad as you think. I know you have no reason to trust me, but please do not trust him. Signed Vladimir Rozhkov, aka Number six-three-seven-zero-two-seven-one-three-six."

"Flying flipside!" Multi shouted. "Wasn't he that psychopath who kidnapped Fluey and Natasha?"

"Yeah, he was," Coiley said.

"I think it's time we get started toward the edge," Big D said. "Whatever that is."

The others agreed. Narnia grabbed Panther, and followed Big D and the two Impossibles out through the strange desert. Whatever was going on, they weren't going to stop until they figured it out.


	17. Rolling on the River

Our heroes walked toward the horizon, mainly because it was the only thing they _could_ do. The instructions Coiley found had told them to go to "the edge," whatever that meant. And they soon found out. They came to the edge, all right. The edge of what looked like a building's roof top.

"This is making less sense than ever," Narnia grumbled. "It's like that entire desert was on top of a stupid building!"

"I have to wonder if this is even real," Multi said.

"I don't know what is, and what isn't anymore," Big D replied, holding his head in his hand. He was having difficulty maintaining his composure about now.

"I guess the question now is where to go from here," Coiley said.

"I don't think that'd be a problem for you two," Narnia said. "Can't you use those super powers of yours?"

"We would," Multi said. "But they've konked out on us, and we're not sure how long it'll take for them to konk back in."

"I think the Chessmaster knocked them out," Coiley said. "So it wouldn't be _too_ easy for us. But I think I might have an idea. Look at these gears here. They look like they could control an elevator."

"Great," Narnia said, sarcastically. "How're ya gonna get it up here, Mr. Wizard?"

"Must you continually be so hostile, Ms. Veretennikov?" Big D asked, sounding frustrated.

Coiley ignored them both, and simply pushed one of the two buttons on a box nearby. The gears began turning then, and our heroes could hear the elevator coming up, albeit slowly. It took awhile, but finally, a platform appeared. On it was a box wrapped in black paper, as well as a ringing telephone. Big D walked over, and picked up the receiver.

"You need to access the control panel to lower the elevator," a mechanical voice said, and then it hung up.

"Control panel," Big D said, looking around. He found a box on the platform, but he was unable to remove the cover with his bare hands.

"Here's a crow bar, chief," Multi said, handing the instrument to his superior.

"You take care of it, Multi," Big D said.

Multi nodded, and jammed the crowbar in between the control panel and it's cover. With some leverage, he managed to pry the cover off. Inside, there was a strange apparatus, three small tanks of some kind, connected to a ball of sorts. Multi didn't know what to make of it.

"Curiouser, and curiouser, to coin a phrase," he said. "At least there are some instructions!"

Multi took the instructions, and unfolded them. But it looked more like some sort of recipe than instructions.

"Required ingredients," he said. "A glass of water, three paint, and stage ID colored card."

"The floors must be color coded," Coiley said.

"Well, let's look for the missing ingredients," Narnia said. "The sooner we get outta here, the better!"

That being said, our heroes started searching the roof top. Coiley found a glass sitting on a box, as well as a sink, which was loaded with junk. But the junk included a red tablet, a blue tablet, and a green tablet, and a card that had an image of the apparatus behind the elevator's control panel.

"This must be what we need," he said.

"Let's see if we can get this elevator working, Coiley," Multi said, filling the glass with water.

The two Impossibles then walked over to the platform's control panel. Multi poured the water into the tanks, and Coiley dropped the tablets into them. Then the two of them pulled the levers on the tanks to mix the colors until they matched the one on the access card. It took some figuring, but they were finally able to match it up.

"I think that does it," Multi said. "Let's go!"

"Hold it," Narnia said, picking up the box. "I'm dying to see what's in here. Open it up, chiefy."

Big D shot Narnia a dirty look, took the box, and opened it. Inside, he found the sphere. The sphere that caused this mess in the first place.

"This thing is going to be the death of me yet," he grumbled, picking up the sphere. He looked at it, and an image appeared in it. It was the Chessmaster, with what looked like an energy beam coming out of his hand. The beam was fixed on Fluey, and it appeared that the dark-haired Impossible was suspended in the air by this beam. Then he clenched his fist tightly, and stared at the sphere intensely.

"Chief?" Coiley asked, a little uncertainly.

"This cursed sphere," Big D said, practically growling. "This glass ball has caused me more trouble than anything else in the world. Just because it can see into the future . . . . it doesn't have the power to control my free will. And I _won't_ let it control me anymore! Here's what I think of this sphere and the so-called future it's predicted!"

Big D took hold of the sphere, walked over to the edge of the roof, and hurled it as hard as he possibly could. It sailed through the air, and then plummeted downward, until the group heard it hit the ground.

_CRASH!_

Narnia, Panther, and the two Impossibles just stared at the chief, wide-eyed. Saying nothing, Big D climbed onto the platform, and practically pounded the down button. The others followed, quickly. Once they were all aboard, the platform began moving downward, though very slowly.

"I wonder where this thing's going to take us," Multi said.

"Hopefully, to Fluey," Coiley said. "Though I'm not so sure I want to deal with the Chessmaster."

"You leave him to me," Big D replied. "I can guarantee you, he won't get off lightly, that's for sure."

After what seemed like days, the platform finally stopped. Our heroes now found themselves and some sort of river.

"Oh, look," Narnia said. "The river Styx."

"I'm sure it's not as bad as _that_," Big D said, giving Narnia a dirty look.

"How are we going to get across?" Multi asked.

"There's a sailboat over here," Coiley said. "But it won't do any good without a sail."

"Yeah, but there's no wind around here, anyway," Narnia said. "Any ideas?"

"Well, let's have a look around and see what we can find," Big D said. "You never know when something is going to come in handy."

The group looked around this strange dock, not knowing what too look for. The only thing they saw was a locked shed, some sort of angel statue, and a barrel with strange luminous insects flying around it.

"Wait a sec," Coiley said, getting a closer look at the statue. He picked up a piece of purple material from it's hand. "Hey, chief! Come look at this!"

Big D walked over, took the piece of material from Coiley, and investigated it. It looked like a piece of the Impossibles' stage costumes.

"It must be Fluey's," Coiley said. "He must've been here!"

"Either that, or the Chessmaster planted it here to throw us off," Big D said. "It's hard to tell."

"So what do we do?" Coiley asked.

Big D heaved a sigh. He didn't have the slightest idea. He needed to think this over for a minute. Suddenly, he heard Multi let out a scream.

"Eureka!"

"What's up, Multi?" Coiley asked.

"I found a key," Multi said. "And I'll just bet anything it fits in that locked shed!"

"Well, don't just stand there!" Narnia shouted. "Try it out, already!"

Multi stuck the key in the keyhole, and unlocked the door. Unfortunately, he couldn't go anywhere from there. It was too dark.

"I need a flashlight or something," he said. "Otherwise, we won't be able to see what's in that shed."

"Here's a lantern," Coiley said. "But there's no light in it."

"Maybe we can use those bugs over there," Narnia said. "They're giving off light. I just hope they're not radioactive!"

Coiley took the light, and approached the bugs. It was somewhat like catching fireflies in jars, like he and his younger sister often did in their backyard during the summer. Once he got them all in the lantern, he handed it to Multi. The red-haired Impossible took it, and went inside the shed to investigate further. Unfortunately, there still wasn't enough light in the room, but he did notice a small beam of light from the ceiling.

"Hmmm," he said, thoughtfully. "I think I might be able to enlarge that hole . . . . if only I could reach it."

Multi pushed one of the buttons on his communicator, but it did him no good at all. The transformer wasn't going to work. He sighed, and looked around the shed, until he spotted a broom in the corner.

"This should do the trick!" he shouted. He stuck the broom handle into the hole, and pushed, taking an entire ceiling panel off, which provided him with the light he needed.

"Perfect!" he shouted. "Now to have myself a look around!"

The first thing Multi noticed was an anvil hanging in the middle of the room on some kind of string.

"Kind of dangerous," he said. "Why's this thing just hanging here, anyway? I'll figure it out later."

Leaving the anvil, Multi went to some shelves, and practically tore them apart. The first thing he found was a letter tacked to the wall.

"Dear Chessmaster," he read, "we can no longer work in these conditions. The wind station is terminating its activity until significant improvements are made. Signed the station workers. PS, and we are tired of pipes clogged with birds. I'd better hold onto this and show it to Big D."

Multi continued looking around, but the only other thing he could find was a slip of paper that had the letters "A G A" on it. He sighed, and walked back out to the dock.

"Did you find anything?" Coiley asked.

"Just these," Multi said, handing the note to Big D. "There's a hanging anvil in there, too, but I don't know how to get it down."

"I can take care of that," Narnia said. "And I'll show you. Come with me, Red. You might learn something."

Multi followed Narnia into the shed. Narnia looked at the anvil, and nodded. Then she took out her knife, ready to cut, but then she saw something underneath it.

"Hold it," she said. "Looks like a hatch door. And we can use this anvil to open it. Stand back!"

Narnia then cut the rope holding up the anvil, and it crashed down, smashing the hatch cover. Then, after putting her knife away, she and Multi climbed down to see what was there.

"Looks like a giant fan," Multi said. "I wonder if this is the wind station the note mentioned?"

"Could be. The question is how to get it running. Got any ideas?"

"I guess we look for spare parts. Come on!"

Multi and Narnia climbed back up to the shed, and began looking for the parts necessary to repair the fan. And that wasn't going to be easy. Multi managed to open the control panel, and saw he needed a code. That must have been the slip of paper he found. He took it out of his pocket, and pushed the buttons on the panel in order to unlock the system. Then, he and Narnia began searching for the parts they needed.

"Here's something," Narnia said, picking up what looked like a fan blade. "It looks just like the big one, except smaller."

"We'd better look for others like it," Multi said. "I have a feeling that's what it's going to take to make this contraption work."

The two of them raced up the stairs, and explained to Coiley and Big D what they had found. Immediately, the foursome got to work searching every nook and cranny they could. Not only did they find the two fans they needed, but they also found some matches.

"Don't know what good these'll do," Coiley said.

"There's an oven downstairs," Multi said. "We'll need to light it in order to generate the wind. Let's go!"

The two Impossibles took the fans and the matches and ran back downstairs. Multi attached the fans and turned them on while Coiley lit the ovens. Once they did that, a warm wind began to blow.

"That should do it," Multi said, then his face fell when he realized something. "Except we're still stuck. What good is a sailboat without a sail?"

"Not a problem," Coiley said, looking over at part of the machine. "Here's a sail right here. Just what we need!"

"Great, Coiley! Come on!"

The boys raced back to the docks as fast as they could with the sail, and attached it to the boat.

"All hands on deck!" Multi shouted. "Raise the main sail! Batten down the hatches! Weigh anchor, and full speed ahead!"

"I'll take care of that, Captain Bligh," Narnia said, rolling her eyes.

"What's with the sailor talk, Multi?" Coiley asked.

"My grandfather was a Navy SEAL," Multi said, sheepishly, as his face was turning a very interesting shade of pink.

Narnia cut the rope that anchored the boat to the dock, and our heroes were off once again. After awhile, they found an abandoned rowboat and what looked like an old fire escape.

"I think we're on the right track," Big D said, as he grabbed onto the edge of the fire escape and pulled himself onto it.

"Row," Panther replied, jumping onto the fire escape himself.

"I wonder how much farther we have to go," Multi said.

"Hopefully not too much more," Big D said. "I have a feeling we might be closing in."

And with that, our heroes began climbing up the fire escape, hoping that this was soon to be over.


	18. Cloack and Dagger

Once our heroes reached the top of the fire escape, they found a man wearing some sort of cloak and hood, holding a sign that said "You." Then he suddenly crumpled it up, and tossed it over his shoulder.

"Everyone is tired of waiting for you," the man said. "Greetings, on behalf of the Assistant Curator of Project Earth. The Chessmaster will meet with you all soon. But first, you must complete the compulsory registration and obtain a pass."

"Ugh," Narnia groaned.

"Well, what choice do we have?" Big D asked.

"Seems kind of silly, if you ask me," the hooded man mumbled. "Since the four of you are the last representatives of Project Earth. But the procedures must be followed."

"I see," the chief said.

"Anyway," the hooded man said, "everything you need is in these boxes. Just look around."

The quartet began to dig through the boxes, hoping they were close to the end of this entire thing. They found a T-shirt, a button, and a little flag, all with the Earth pictured on them, and text reading "Earth Citizen."

"Weird," Narnia said.

"You said it," Multi agreed, pulling out a cloak with a hood on it.

"You guys are going to need those," the hooded man said. "There should be more of them in another box."

"Look at this," Coiley said, unrolling a scroll, as Multi found additional cloaks. "To register, you must get a personal CD, get the registry operator's number, call the operator for registration, and get a pass to visit the Chessmaster."

"Gotta love bureaucracy," Narnia said, sarcastically.

"Well, we've got the CD's," Multi said, picking up several discs. "Now, where do we go to register?"

"The terminal is located right after the arch on the other side of the street," the man in the hood said.

The group walked in the direction the man in the hood had indicated. They found the arch, and also found several other people, all wearing the same hoods as the man who greeted them.

"Who are all these people?" Multi asked.

"I don't know," Coiley said. "But I'm not exactly sure I _want_ to know . . . ."

"Let's gets register and get going!" Narnia shouted.

Big D took one of the CD's, and stuck it into a computer terminal device. On the screen appeared something written in some odd language that _nobody_ could identify!

"What in the world?" Big D asked.

"Try the other discs, chief," Multi said.

Big D ejected the first disc, and tried the others that they had found, only to find the exact same thing was on every last one of them.

"I'm going back to talk to that guy in the hood," Coiley said, taking the discs.

"I'll go with you," Multi said.

The two Impossibles took the discs, and went back to the guy in the hood, who was just standing there, doing nothing.

"Hey, Mr . . . . . whoever you are," Coiley said. "We can't read what's on these discs. Think maybe you could help us?"

The man in the hood took the discs, cursed under his breath, tossed the discs over his shoulder, and removed his hood, revealing a man who looked like he was in his mid to late twenties.

"My name's Peter," he said. "I'm just an apprentice. My sole job here is to greet people and hand out discs. Six billion people so far."

"Six _billion_?!" Coiley shouted, incredulously. "You're kidding!"

"I am not kidding," Peter said. "Anyway, there's been a mix up with the discs."

Peter then rummaged around his robe, and pulled out another CD from it.

"Here," he said, handing it to Coiley. "Try this one."

"Thanks," Coiley said, taking the disc. He and Multi returned to the terminal, and handed Big D the disc.

"We found out something, chief," Multi said. "Six billion people have come here so far."

"Impossible," Big D said, putting the disc into the computer. "But then again . . . ."

When the disc loaded, the screen revealed text which read "Choose a Procedure: 1. Registration, 2. Game."

"Finally, we're getting somewhere," Big D said, choosing option number one.

After various clicking, a telephone icon and a number appeared on the screen. Multi took a piece of paper out of his pocket, while Narnia took a pencil out of her ammo belt, and wrote down the number. Then the group walked over to a phone booth, and Big D picked up the receiver, and punched in the numbers.

"Registration is complete," a mechanical voice said.

"At least that's something," Multi said.

"It certainly is," Peter said, from outside. He reached into his robe, and pulled out a pass. "This is good for all four of you."

"Rooowwww!" Panther complained.

"Okay, okay, _five_ of you," Peter groaned, rolling his eyes. "Sheesh . . . . ."

"You're not too happy with this job, are you?" Big D asked.

"Darn right I'm not," Peter said. "We're all getting pretty sick of listening to Ol' Four Eyes! I'd like to know who died and made him King of the World! You know I think he thinks he's God?"

"I'll tell you this," Big D said, taking the pass. "I think he's in serious trouble once I catch up with him."

And with that, the foursome (okay, okay, _five_some) walked down the street, and toward some kind of a staircase, blocked off by a gate. There was a card reader nearby, and Big D stuck the pass into it. Immediately, the gates opened. The group put on the cloaks, and slowly walked up the steps, not knowing what lay ahead of them. One thing they _did_ know, after awhile. It was one _extremely_ long staircase!

"These steps seem to go on forever!" Multi groaned.

"Panther's already asleep," Narnia said. "He's gone completely limp!"

"I wonder when we'll reach the top of them," Coiley said.

"Probably never," Narnia sighed. Then she gave Big D a swat in the back of the head. "This is all your fault, you know! If you hadn't been so curious about that stupid sphere the _last_ time . . . . ."

"Spare me the lecture, Ms. Veretennikov," Big D said. "I am in no mood to hear it."

"Well, what you should have done was to just leave that stupid sphere where it was after Dimitri died, taken that stupid grandson of yours, and left!"

"If I had done that, then who knows _what_ in the world would have happened. That Australian assassin, or whatever he was, would have found it, and . . . . ."

"And _he_ would've taken the fall, not you! I always thought you were an idiot, Big D, and this just proves it!"

Big D said nothing. It was pointless to argue, anyway. But even though the chief was through with this conversation, Narnia wasn't.

"And besides," she said, "that grandson of yours is to blame as well, what with him going back to that city to look for you, after he'd been told you were dead . . . . ."

"He has a bit of a sixth sense," Big D said. "There are times when his intuition tells him things."

"Even if it's stupid," Narnia went on. "He shouldn't have gone back to that city in the first place. If he didn't, none of this would have even happened! I don't even know _why_ I'm risking my neck for him. Seriously, I think he's even a bigger idiot than _you_ are! I say we turn around and give this up! Let the Chessmaster have that stupid little twerp! He's not worth the trouble!"

That did it. Big D stopped in his tracks, which caused the others to stop as well. He clenched his fist so hard, his knuckles turned white. He turned toward Narnia, practically glaring daggers. Multi and Coiley took a couple of steps back down the staircase, nervously. They had _never_ seen Big D look _this_ angry before.

"I've tried to be patient with you," he said, almost growling. "And I'm tired of it. Let me remind you, Ms. Veretennikov, no one forced you into this. You _voluntarily_ accompanied the boys and myself on this search. And you are more than welcome to leave whenever you like. No one is stopping you. As of this moment, I don't care what you do, but _nothing_ is going to stop me from meeting with this Chessmaster. I have lost my wife, and my son to unscrupulous characters, and I _don't_ intend on losing my grandson the same way!"

Big D turned away, and continued walking up the stairs. Then he stopped for a moment, and turned back toward Narnia.

"One more thing," he said. "You can insult me all you want, but if you _ever_ say _any_thing like that about my grandson in front of me again, I _might_ have to break a code of ethics I have about striking a woman! And don't think I won't, either!"

And with that, Big D stormed up the stairway. Coiley and Multi followed. Narnia just stood there, stunned. She stroked her cat for a moment, and then, silently followed Big D and the two Impossibles.


	19. Subconscious

The group reached the top of the stairs and they were met by lots of people, all clothed in the same robes that our heroes were wearing. It was a little unnerving. What was even more unnerving was the fact that it seemed all these people formed somewhat of a corridor. At the end of the corridor was a table, and there sat the Chessmaster.

"Hello," he said. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Chessmaster. This is both a name, _and_ a title, as I am merely a curator. My task is to monitor Project Earth. I've paused the project, because I could not bear to watch what happened on Earth any longer. I had to pause life, to see if people understand what they are doing . . . . . warring, instead of loving, destruction instead of creation . . . . . unacceptable. Do you see all these people? They made their choice, and they are waiting for you. I've spoken to all of them. You four are the last ones, and everything depends on you. None of you are the chosen one, but, as I've said, you are the last ones. And that means something."

"I'm almost afraid to ask what it is," Multi commented.

"I wish to apologize for my order," the Chessmaster continued, ignoring Multi for the moment. "I needed executants to help me pause Project Earth. I visited people in their dreams, and those I visited accepted the challenge. They helped me, and I am grateful to them. The main thing is that everyone is here now, and that you four are here. I had to kidnap Fluid Man for this, Big D. I can see your true actions and motives, only when the stakes are high. All this could be seen only when you lose the most valuable thing in your life. You need to find your grandson, otherwise you will stay in one of the most horrible places that you can imagine forever. I will allow your friends to assist you, if you so wish."

Big D just stood there silently, staring at the Chessmaster. The Chessmaster merely smiled, and then blinked. Suddenly, our four heroes (or five, including Panther) were transported into a strange room. There were two floating cubes floating in the center of it. One had a question mark, and the other had an exclamation point on it. There were what appeared to be picture frames on the walls, glowing purple.

"Where are we?" Narnia asked, a little nervously.

"I've no idea," Big D said. "The only thing I know is we have to get out of here."

"Maybe we should start by turning off those purple lights," Multi said. "They're kind of annoying."

Big D walked over to the cube with the question mark on it. The minute he did, he and the others were suddenly transported to another strange room. This one had an old car, and a chandelier, both covered with frost, and various items scattered around.

"_Now_ what?" Narnia asked.

"Don't ask us," Coiley said, shrugging. "_None_ of us knows what's going on here!"

"What's this?" Multi asked, picking up a frame. It was a black and white photo of a woman wearing a wedding dress. Big D looked over Multi's shoulder at it, and his eyes widened in shock.

"Annie . . . . ." he gasped.

"Who's Annie?" Narnia asked.

"My wife," Big D explained, taking the photo from Multi. He looked around the room a little more, and saw various other photos laying around. One was of him as a child, with his parents, and his twin brother Derek, and younger sister Alice. Another was of him and his wife the day his son, Jack, was born. Another was of him, Annie, and Jack when Phyllis was born. He got a closer look at the old car, and realized it was the first car he had bought when he was a teenager.

"I don't know how to say this," he said. "But it looks like these are skeletons of my past."

"That's not all," Coiley said, picking up a strange looking top hat. "Looks like something the Mad Hatter would wear."

"I read a book once," Narnia said. "I don't remember if it was on psychiatry or psychology, or whatnot, but it said that everyone has a madman inside of their head."

"That doesn't set my mind at ease at all," Big D said. He looked at the photo of his wife, and noticed something was attached to the back of the frame. It was a heart. He took it off, and decided to hold onto it. He had a feeling he might need it.

"Hey, chief, look at this," Coiley said, picking up what looked like a large circular button with a question mark on it. "There's writing on the back!"

The group walked over, and saw that Coiley was right. On the back of the button was a question:

_What is this place?_

"That's what _I'd_ like to know!" Narnia shouted, looking around. "Hey, here's another question mark button thing!"

"And another!" Multi shouted, grabbing a third button with a question mark on it.

Our heroes realized there were several of these around, and gathered them all. Written on the backs of them were various questions.

_ What happened to the world?_

_ Who did this to the world?_

_ 2+2=?_

_ What to do next?_

_ Will we ever see Fluid again?_

_ How to get out of here?_

"If these are the questions," Multi said, "then what are the answers?"

"I don't know," Big D said. "But I think I've just made a startling discovery about where we are."

"Well, don't keep us in suspense, Pops!" Narnia shouted. "Where _are_ we?!"

"I'm not positive," Big D said. "But I think we might be somewhere inside my mind . . . . in some depths of it that even I was unaware existed . . . ."

"That's kind of a creepy, Big D," Coiley said.

A moment later, our heroes flashed back into the room they had entered. Immediately, Big D grabbed the cube with the exclamation point on it, and the group was flashed to another strange room. This one had a large, flowering tree in it.

"What the heck is _that_?!" Narnia asked.

"The Tree of Wisdom," Big D said. "Something my father told me about, a long time ago. It's just come into bloom. It won't bear fruit until later . . . . . and I'm not sure _why_ we're seeing it here."

"Well, let's take a look around, and see what we can find," Multi said.

The group looked around, but they didn't see much that could be of use to them. Multi found a net, and decided to hold onto it, just in case. Coiley found a remote control, and decided to do the same, though they didn't know what for. Like in the other room, the group found various exclamation points, all of which had something written on the backs of them:

_Chessmaster_

_ Fight_

_ Yes_

_ Through the dark_

_ The subconscious_

_ In a coma_

_ Four_

"I wonder if these are the answers to the questions," Multi said.

"Probably," Coiley said. "But I don't think they're the right answers to the questions."

"I've got an idea," Narnia said. "Let's put the right answers to the questions and see what happens."

It took a little while, but our heroes finally managed to put together the questions with the answers.

"Okay, let's see what we've got here," Narnia said. "I'll read the questions, and you guys read me the answers. What is this place?"

"The subconscious," Big D said.

"What happened to the world?" Narnia asked.

"It's in a coma," Coiley said.

"Who did this to the world?" Narnia asked.

"The Chessmaster," Multi said.

"Two plus two?" Narnia asked.

"Four," Multi said.

"What do we do next?" Narnia asked.

"Fight," Coiley said.

"Will we ever see Fluid again?" Narnia asked.

"Yes," Big D said. "At least, I hope so."

"So do the rest of us," Coiley said.

"Final question," Narnia said. "How do we get out of here?"

"Through the dark," Multi said.

Suddenly, our heroes flashed back to the first room. Now they saw clouds with words on them, floating around, words like "mind," "sphere," "dream," etc.

"What the . . . ." Coiley asked.

"I need to collect my thoughts," Big D said. "Hand me that net, Multi."

"Sure," Multi said. "But this whole idea of this sounds like one of Fluey's bad puns."

Big D took the net, and scooped up his "thoughts" one by one. The minute he collected his thoughts, a mannequin dropped from the ceiling.

"This is getting weirder and weirder," Narnia said.

"I think I know what to do next," Multi said. He took the top hat, and put it on the mannequins head. "Hmm. Nothing happened."

"Let me try something," Coiley said. He took the remote control, and clicked it. The frames on the wall changed, revealing two eyes, two ears, and a mouth.

"These might help with this mannequin," Narnia said. She took the parts out of the frames, and stuck them to the mannequin. Again, nothing happened.

"We might be missing a component," Big D said. "But the question is what?"

Panther began meowing, and he pawed at Big D's leg.

"Meow!" he cried. "Mrrroooowww! Meeeerrrroooowww!"

"What's with you?" Narnia asked, picking up him. "Awww, is baby hungry? Momma will feed baby just as soon as we're out of here."

Panther squirmed, and Narnia let him go. The cat continued to paw at the chief, until he picked the cat up.

"You can be very trying," he said.

Panther then reached his paw into Big D's jacket, and pulled out the heart. Big D took it from the cat, and walked over to the mannequin.

"This may be it," he said, placing the heart on the mannequins chest.

The minute the heart was in place, the mannequin raised, and three figures dropped down from the ceiling, landing on the floor with a loud _THUD!_ And all three of them looked exactly like Fluey.

"Trembling transistors!" Coiley asked. "How do we know which one's the real Fluey?"

"That's what we have to find out," Big D said. "If we pick the wrong one, we're stuck here forever. And we only have one chance to do this."

"We could sure use Skittles about now," Multi sighed.

"Wait!" Narnia shouted, snapping her fingers. "Panther!"

"What about Panther?" Multi asked.

"Cats have a good sense of smell," Narnia said, picking up her cat. "And Panther really likes your friend. I'm sure he'd know which one is the real one!"

Narnia put the cat down close to the figures. Panther came across the first one, and sniffed. Then he walked over to the second one, and sniffed at it. Then he walked over to the third one, sniffed it a bit, then sat down and turned to the others.

"Meow!" he said.

"That's it!" Coiley shouted.

Immediately, Big D ran over to Fluey, and pulled him into a sitting position. He was unconscious, but other than that, he seemed all right.

The minute the others ran over, the other two figures vanished, into what looked like a flock of black butterflies. There was a flash of light, and suddenly, our heroes returned to face the Chessmaster. Fluey also appeared, now wearing one of those hooded robes, but he was awake this time around. The Chessmaster cleared his throat, and stood up. It looked like he was smiling. Then he clapped his hands, and a bright light surrounded the area. The next thing our heroes knew, they were back on the roof of the mental clinic. They stood there, not knowing what to think. As they were just standing there, several lights from the other buildings around began coming on in the windows.

"Looks like the rest of the world's waking up, chief," Multi said.

"It appears all's well that ends well," Big D replied.

"Not quite," Narnia said. "There's something that still bothers me. What happened to Natasha?"

"We'd better start looking for her," Multi said.

"No need for that, my red-haired friend," a voice said. The group turned around and saw none other than Natasha coming up the stairs from the clinic.

"Tash, where've you been?" Narnia asked. Natasha just smiled.

"I think the question is, vhere am I goink," she said. She took a small capsule out of her jacket, and threw it at our heroes. Once it hit the floor, it exploded into smoke.

"Holy smoke screens!" Coiley shouted, coughing. "What is this?"

"One of AVA's gas capsules," Narnia explained, coughing herself. "But it's not one of the lethal ones, thank goodness! It'll clear out in a couple minutes."

As Narnia said, the smoke cleared out, though the group had a bit of a residual cough (except Panther, mainly because he was close enough to the ground to avoid the smoke).

"Natasha!" Narnia shouted. "What in the world did you go and do that fo . . . . . . Natasha?"

"Hey, she's gone," Coiley said.

"She's not the only one," Multi said, looking around. "Fluey's gone and disappeared, too!"

"Come on!" Big D shouted. "We'd better start looking for them."


	20. To the Rescue

During the smoke screen, Natasha had grabbed Fluey by the wrist, and dragged him down off the roof, through the clinic, out the back door, and into an alley.

"Hey!" Fluey shouted. "What's going on here? What are you doing?!"

"That is none of your business for right now," Natasha said. "You vill find out soon enough. Now keep quiet, and keep movink!"

"Yeah, but . . . . ."

"I said shut up!"

Natasha delivered a slap across Fluey's face, and continued dragging him down the alley. She stopped when she reached an old warehouse that had been abandoned for years. Once she got there, she threw Fluey to the floor.

"Hey!" he shouted. "What's the big idea?!"

"I told you, you vill find out," Natasha said, glaring at the dark-haired teenager. "That Chessmaster . . . . . he didn't get the job done. Ve had a deal!"

"What are you _talk_ing about?"

"Your chief vas supposed to _fail_ vhen he met the Chessmaster! I promised myself he'd pay for rejectink me, and the Chessmaster vas _supposed_ to make sure he _failed_!"

"I highly doubt it. He may have been a little kooky, but I don't think he really . . . ."

"Silence, you little vorm! Since the Chessmaster failed, I have to take things in my own hands."

Fluey stood up, and watched Natasha walk around the room, sizing everything up.

"This vill do," she said, taking a cigarette out of her pocket.

"Do for what?" Fluey asked.

Natasha didn't answer. She lit her cigarette, took a few drags, walked over to a box, opened it, and pulled out several sticks of dynamite.

"I knew these vould come in handy someday," she said with a sinister-sounding laugh.

"What are you up to?" Fluey asked, giving the Russian femme-fatale a weird look. He wasn't sure he liked where this was going.

"Oh, you'll see, dahlink," Natasha said, evilly, and she grabbed Fluey's arm.

"You'll see," she said again.

Meanwhile, Big D, Narnia, and the two Impossibles walking along the streets of the city, somewhat hot on the trail.

"Thank goodness our communicators are working again!" Coiley shouted. He and Multi had converted to their superhero forms the minute the group began searching.

"Yeah," Multi said. "Otherwise, we'd be looking for the proverbial needle in the proverbial haystack."

"I'm still trying to figure out why Natasha tossed that gas bomb at us," Narnia said.

"And why she took off with Fluey," Coiley said. "It's obvious she did, but why?"

"I'm sure I don't know, either," Big D said.

The group continued walking along, following the homing signal on Coiley's communicator, when Narnia stopped suddenly.

"Wait a minute . . . . ." she said. "I think I might know why she . . . . . but it's so farfetched . . . . ."

"What?" Big D asked.

"Naaahhh, she couldn't," Narnia said. "At least, I _think_ she _wouldn't_ . . . . ."

"What are you talking about?" Big D asked again.

"I was just thinking about the last time Natasha was jilted by a guy," Narnia said. "And I mean jilted big time. Actually similar to the way you told her off, chief. And she was _really_ mad about it. _Really_ mad!"

"What did she do?" Multi asked.

"Well . . . ." Narnia said, hesitating. "You've heard of the saying Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?"

"Yes . . . ." Big D said, starting to get a little nervous.

"Well, that ain't _nothin'_ compared to Natasha when she gets started!" Narnia shouted. "When she wants to make someone pay, they pay, all right. In spades, diamonds, hearts, _and_ clubs!"

"Wait a minute," Multi said, looking nervous. "I thought you said all she'd do was throw a tantrum, have a good cry for an hour, and eat an entire pint of ice cream in one sitting, forget it."

"Yeah, I know I said that, but I forgot about the last guy who told her off," Narnia said. "Tash will go out of the way to hurt the person who's hurt her. And she'll want to hurt them _more_. What she usually does is finds out all she can about the person who hurt her. The last one happened to be married with three kids, all under the age of ten. I won't go into the details, but Natasha got this guy back through his kids. And it wasn't pretty."

"Revenge by proxy," Big D said. "And if that's the case, I suggest we'd better get a move on, before it's too late!"

And on that note, our heroes began running down the alley as fast as they possibly could.

Back at the warehouse, Natasha was just finishing up attaching wires to several sticks of dynamite. Then she wired a digital clock to them, placed them on the table, looked over at Fluey, and smirked. She tied him to one of the beams that supported the ceiling, and gagged him as well. She walked over to him, and began wrapping a couple of wires around his wrists.

"This vill keep you from strugglink too much, dahlink," she said. "You even try to reach for button that turns you into superhero, you'll only vind up yanking vire out of bomb, and you know vhat _that_ vill lead to."

Natasha took the end of the wires around Fluey's wrist, and attached them to her time bomb. Then she began setting the timer. She glanced over at Fluey, who was giving her the dirtiest look he could muster. He didn't know what else he _could_ do, since he was somewhat attached to that bomb.

"Now, now, now," Natasha said. "Don't give me that look. It's nothink personal, you understand. But that grandfather of yours _must_ be taught a lesson. I don't like to be rejected. I vant to hurt him like he hurt me!"

Fluey just gave Natasha a weird look. This woman was definitely a few bricks shy of a full load, that was for sure. Natasha finished setting her timer, and started toward the door.

"Vell, I must be goink now," she said. "And so vill you, but at a much higher altitude. Farewell, dahlink."

And with an evil snicker, Natasha left the room, and closed the door. Fluey gulped, and began rubbing his head against the beam he was tied to, trying to work his gag loose. Then maybe he'd be able to call for help, just in case the others weren't able to track him down in time.

As luck would have it, while Natasha was making her escape, who should arrive at the warehouse but our heroes? When Natasha saw them, she skidded to a halt.

"Vhat the . . . . ." she started. "How did you find me so fast?!"

"All SSHQ communication devices have built in homing signals," Big D said. "All we had to do was track Fluid down."

"Vell, no matter," Natasha said. "Even if you did track him down, you'd be too late!"

"What do you mean?" Multi asked.

"Because in about two minutes, Big D, your grandson vill be goink out of this vorld vith a bang!" Natasha shouted, cackling madly.

"Why are you even bothering, Tash?" Narnia asked.

"Because I vant to hurt _him_," Natasha said, thrusting her finger toward the chief, "like he hurt _me_! The Chessmaster vas supposed to do the job! He vas supposed to make sure you failed! I made deal vith him! I told him about vhat vas goink on vith the vorld . . . . vars, destruction, things like that. Ve agreed, if the last vuns _failed_ his test, they vould be trapped in subconscious forever!"

"What was your end of the bargain?" Coiley asked.

"To change vorld," Natasha said, shrugging. "By startink over from scratch vith Chessmaster, of course."

"So the rest of the world would still be in that strange coma, huh?" Narnia said. "Tash, I think you've lost it completely."

"It doesn't matter!" Natasha shouted. "You only have about a minute left before bomb goes off! Do svidaniya, Babushkins!"

With that, Natasha ran off. Coiley and Multi were about to go after her, when Big D stopped them.

"Wait, boys!" he shouted. "We'll deal with her later. Right now, we have to find Fluid, and that bomb she was talking about!"

"He's right," Narnia said. "Let's move!"

Immediately, Coiley tuned his communicator's tracker to Fluey's communicator. Once the coordinates were set, the foursome (five including Panther), ran down the hallway, following the signal. It led them to the back of the old warehouse, down a dead end corridor, with only one door at the end of it.

"This should be it," Coiley said.

"Better make sure he's actually in there," Narnia said. "Natasha could've swiped that wrist-com of his and planted it somewhere to lead us on a wild goose chase."

"Good thinking," Coiley said.

"Fluey, are you in there?" Multi called out, knocking on the door.

"Yeah!" Fluey answered, finally managing to work his gag loose. "But whatever you guys do, _don't_ open the door! Natasha wired it to a bomb, and if you open the door, it'll go off!"

"Why don't you use your transformer?" Coiley asked. "Did Natasha take it off or something?"

"No, I'm still wearing it, but she also slipped a couple of wires around my wrists," Fluey said. "If I move them to reach the button on my transformer, ka-boom!"

"Holy horrendous, are we ever in a mess this time!" Coiley shouted. "How're we gonna get in there without setting off the bomb?"

"I don't know," Big D said. "And even if I _did_ know, it wouldn't do much good. I don't know how to diffuse a bomb."

"Neither do we," Multi said.

"I do," Narnia said. "And I may have an idea on how to get in there, but it's risky. It's your call, chiefy-boy."

"At this point, I'm willing to try anything," Big D said.

"Okay, then," Narnia said, and she walked to the door, and leaned against it for a minute.

"Kid, I need you to tell me something," she said. "Are the wires on the bomb taut, or are they slack?"

"_What_?!" Fluey asked. "What the heck does _that_ mean?"

Narnia groaned, frustratedly.

"Taut means tight, and slack means loose!" she shouted. "Now are the wires taut, or are they slack?!"

"They're slack," Fluey said. "The ones on the door, and the ones on my wrists."

"Okay," Narnia said. "That means if we open the door, the wire tightens, and it sets off the bomb. And if he moves his wrists too much, that may also tighten the wire and set it off. What we need to do is keep the wire slack while opening the door."

"I don't know how you're gonna do that in less than a minute!" Fluey shouted.

"Don't worry, I've got everything under control!" Narnia shouted. Then she turned to the other two Impossibles. "One of you, open that vent over there."

"Open the vent?" Coiley asked. "What's that gonna . . . . ."

"Don't ask questions!" Narnia snapped, picking up Panther. "Just do it!"

Coiley and Multi both immediately raced to the vent on the wall, and pried the cover off of it. Narnia ran over to it, and put Panther inside of it.

"Okay, baby," she said. "Make Momma proud, and go find your friend."

Panther meowed, and ran inside the air vent. He sniffed around inside of it for awhile, and emerged inside the room, kicking open the loose vent cover on the wall, and jumping down into the room.

"Panther!" Fluey shouted. "Boy, am I glad to see you!"

"Did he get in there, Fluey?" Multi asked.

"Yeah, he's in here," Fluey said. "But I don't know if he'll be able to claw or chew through these ropes in forty-eight seconds!"

"He's not going to," Narnia said. "Where's the bomb in there, kid? Is it on the floor, or did Natasha put it on a table or something?"

"It's on a table, why?"

"Okay, good. Panther! Go to the table, and knock the bomb onto the floor!"

Big D and the two Impossibles gave Narnia a strange look.

"I hate to dissuade you, Ms. Veretennikov," Big D said. "But you simply can _not_ get a cat to obey commands!"

"Panther can," Narnia said, glaring at Big D. "He's specially trained. Panther! Knock the bomb off the table! Now!"

Big D really didn't believe this was going to work. There was only twelve seconds left on the clock. Panther meowed, jumped onto the table, and sniffed at the bomb.

"Come on, baby!" Narnia prodded from outside. "Make Momma proud!"

Panther meowed again, and started pushing the bomb toward the edge of the table. Fluey was only thankful the wires around his wrists were long enough not to tighten as Panther pushed. Finally, the bomb fell to the floor.

"Okay, it's on the floor!" Fluey called out.

"Okay, I'm coming in!" Narnia shouted. She opened the door a crack, and began inching her way inside.

"The rest of you stay out there until I say so!" she shouted.

Once Narnia was inside, she closed the door, and took a pair of wire cutters out of her ammo belt. She picked up the bomb, and inspected it quickly.

"Oh, this is gonna be a snap," she said. She immediately snapped the wire cutters on the blue wire, halting the countdown. Then she severed a green wire, then a red one, which disarmed the bomb entirely.

"Holy Mesopotamia, that was a close call!" Fluey shouted, heaving a huge sigh of relief.

"Okay, fellas, you can come in now!" she shouted.

Immediately, Big D and the two Impossibles ran into the room, and began untying Fluey.

"You okay, ol' buddy?" Coiley asked.

"Yeah," Fluey said. "I didn't think we were gonna make it!"

"What are you talking about?" Narnia said. "We had plenty of time left!"

"Exactly how much time?" Big D asked, unwinding the wires around Fluey's wrists. Narnia looked at the timer on the bomb, let out a scream, and dropped the bomb. She looked like she was about to faint. Big D walked over, picked up the bomb, and looked at it himself.

"One second," he said.

"Boy, that call was a lot closer than I thought!" Fluey shouted, picking up Panther.

"We'd better call HQ, and get someone to send a jet down here to pick us up," Multi said.

"What about Natasha?" Coiley asked.

"She's probably long gone by now," Narnia said, shrugging.

"I'll get hold of headquarters," Big D said. "In the meantime, Ms. Veretennikov, why don't you get hold of the authorities here, and . . . ."

Big D's sentence was cut off by the sound of a gunshot, hitting the wall. The group turned to look, and saw Natasha coming into the room, carrying a smoking gun.

"I'm through playink games," she said. "I'm sure you remember last time, Babushkins. I am expert vith firearms."

"And I'm an expert at extinguishing fires," Fluey said, pushing the button on his communicator, turning him into his superhero form.

"Rally ho ho!" he shouted, going into a full liquid conversion, in the form of a tidal wave. He splashed into Natasha, knocking her off her feet, which sent her gun flying.

"I'll get you for that, you stupid kid!" she shouted.

"I don't think so, Tash," Narnia said. Natasha looked up, and she saw Narnia holding her gun, which was pointed directly at her.

"Narnia, you vouldn't shoot your own sister-in-law, vould you?!" Natasha shouted.

"After what we all just went through?!" Narnia shouted. "We nearly _killed_ ourselves trying to figure out what was going on! You got me mixed up in that mess, just because you were mad at somebody! How could you do that to _me_?!"

"Vell, can't make omelet vithout breakink eggs," Natasha said, shrugging. "Besides, that vas an accident. And you know they say blood is thicker than vater."

"Forget it," Narnia said. "You and I aren't blood relatives, anyway."

"So vhat are you goink to do? Kill me?"

"Nah. I'm just gonna put you under arrest. Where's that rope?"

"You want to arrest her, I think you oughta use handcuffs instead," Fluey said. "You always have a pair on you, don't you, chief?"

"Right here," Big D said, taking a pair of handcuffs out of his jacket, and handing them to Narnia.

"Thanks," Narnia said, snapping the cuffs on her sister-in-law. "Head Honcho's _really_ gonna give it to you, Tash."

Natasha said nothing. She just glared at the lot of them. There wasn't much else she could do, anyway.


	21. Welcome to the Team

About an hour after dropping Natasha off, one of the SSHQ jets arrived at Moscow International airport to take the group back to Megatropolis. Narnia was impressed by the interior of it. Most of the large SSHQ jets were of the luxury variety.

"Now _this_ is what I call traveling first class!" she shouted, sitting down on a long couch and reclining. "Can I take some photos?"

"What for?" Big D asked.

"So I can show Head Honcho once I get back to AVA's office," Narnia said. "See, that was another reason why we had to fly commercial. My boss doesn't pay for travel arrangements. Those come out of our own pockets."

"And the Impossi-Jet most likely wouldn't accommodate all of us for the flight back," Fluey said. "It's the fastest jet I've seen, but it's a little cramped."

Multi and Coiley had to agree on that one. At least the agency jets had plenty of leg room as opposed to commercial flights.

Throughout most of the flight, the Impossibles slept. Panther was curled up next to Fluey, and the dark-haired Impossible had fallen asleep while stroking the feline. Panther was purring like an outboard motor. Narnia just looked at them and shook her head.

"Sometimes I don't get that cat," she said. "He has _never_ gotten along with someone so fast before."

"I never particularly understood them, myself," Big D replied. "I'm not much of a cat person."

Narnia nodded. She stood up, walked over to her cat, and stroked his ears and his face. Panther woke up, and looked up at her. It looked like he was smiling.

"Good kitty," Narnia said, giving her cat a final stroke, and then she walked back over to her seat.

"I can't wait to get back to the states," she said, stretching. "I need a good vacation."

"I can't argue with you there," Big D admitted. "The boys are certainly due for one."

"Aren't you gonna take some time off after this?"

"No, I need to get back to work immediately."

"All work and no play makes chiefy a dull boy."

"Very funny."

"Anyway, I think I'm gonna miss that semi-retirement. There _was_ one good thing about it."

"What was that?"

"I got to spend some long overdue quality time with Panther. I usually can't take him with me when I'm on an assignment from AVA, so I have to board him in a kennel. Poor baby, he hates that."

"That must get expensive."

"Believe me, it does. But I can't bear to give him up for adoption."

Big D nodded. It was about all he could do. Hours later, the SSHQ jet landed on the landing pad at the HQ building. Mike, Phyllis, Shawn, FG, Danalleah, and Skittles were waiting for them inside. The minute she saw her boys, Skittles barked excitedly, and raced toward them at her super speed. She slammed into Multi's chest, knocking him off his feet, and began smothering him in puppy kisses.

"Okay, Skittles, okay!" he shouted. "I missed you, too! Easy, girl!"

"Fluey, I'm so glad you're all right!" Danalleah shouted, practically jumping on Fluey. "I was so worried about you!"

"Boy, are you ever a sight for sore eyes, Dani!" Fluey shouted, holding his girlfriend close. "I didn't think I was gonna see you again!"

"What happened, anyway?" FG asked. "You guys had been gone for who knows how long!"

"Yeah, and then we all fell asleep for who even knows how long as well," Shawn said.

"It's kind of a long story," Fluey said. "We'll tell you girls about it later."

"Yeah, right now, we just want to relax a little," Coiley said.

Nobody could blame the boys one bit for that. As the group walked down the hall, they heard a beeping noise.

"What's that?" Phyllis asked.

"My pager," Narnia said, as she handed Panther to Fluey. "Hold him a minute, would you, kid?"

"Sure," Fluey said, scratching Panther behind his ears.

"Darn it," Narnia said, looking at her pager. "It's my boss. Got a phone I can use, chief?"

"You can use the one in my outer office," Big D said. "Follow me."

Once the group reached the office, Narnia immediately grabbed the phone and dialed.

"Hello, Head Honcho?" she said. "This is Condor. You rang? I'm calling from the Secret Security Headquarters building. Yeah, I just got back to the states. She's still in Russia. Well, if you want to know the truth, she's in jail. Kidnapping and attempted murder. You heard me, attempted murder! Look, I'll explain everything once I get over there. Just give me a day or two to relax, unwind, and . . . . . what? _Another_ assignment? Can't you put Hush-Puppy on it? Look, HH, I just got back to the states, and . . . . but I just got _back_ from there! I see. All right. See you later then."

Narnia hung up the phone and groaned. Then she took Panther and started to leave.

"As much as I'd love to stay, I have to go," she said. "Head Honcho just handed me another assignment. Though this should be a bit less strenuous than this past one."

"Where are they sending you?" Big D asked.

"Of all places, back to Russia," Narnia said. "But it's most likely I'll be scouring the entire globe on this one. HH wants me to go after this guy AVA's been tracking for years, and he's a tricky character. I know I'm going to be going from one place to another with no down time in between."

"That's gotta be rough on Panther," Fluey said.

"I don't usually take him with me," Narnia said, stroking Panther, "because of that factor. That, and he hates traveling. I usually put him in a kennel. And he hates it!"

"So does Skittles," Multi said, scratching his puppy behind her ears.

"But I just can't give him up for adoption," Narnia said. "I don't know if he would go to a good home or not."

"That's a drag," Fluey said, scratching Panther's neck. Panther immediately began purring.

"Well, I _do _have an idea on how to solve this problem," Narnia said. "Provided your grandfather agrees to this."

"What?" Fluey asked.

"Panther really seems to like you, kid," Narnia went on. "And he doesn't warm up to people as quickly as he warmed up to you. How'd you like to keep him?"

"Really?" Fluey asked. "Yeah, I really would like to keep him."

"And just what would you do when you're on tour?" Big D asked. "Or on an out of town assignment?"

"Phyllis could take care of him," Fluey said. "Like she does when we can't take Skittles with us. Come on, chief, please, can I keep him?"

"I don't know," Big D said. "I'm really not too fond of cats."

"Come on, chief," Fluey said. "I'll take care of Panther, and you won't have to do a thing."

"Yeah, chief," Phyllis said. "He _is_ pretty cute, and I'll take care of him for Fluey when the boys are out of town."

"Please, chief?" Fluey asked. "Please, please, please?"

"Meeeooowwww," Panther mewed. He jumped onto Big D's shoulders, and began rubbing up against him, purring like a well-tuned car engine. That did it.

"Oh all right," the chief sighed. "If I don't agree, I'll probably never hear the end of this."

"Thanks, chief!" Fluey shouted. He took Panther off the chief's shoulders, and began stroking the cat. Panther closed his eyes halfway, and began purring even louder.

"I knew that would work out," Narnia said, stroking Panther's ears. Then she leaned closer into the cat's face. "Now, you be a good kitty for your new owner."

"Meow," Panther said, rubbing against Narnia's face.

"I'll probably wind up checking in from time to time when I get a chance," Narnia said. "So I expect you to be taking good care of him, kid."

"No problem," Fluey said, stroking Panther's back.

Narnia nodded, gave her cat a couple of strokes, and then started to leave the office. Before she left, she turned toward Big D.

"I have to admit, Big D, I was wrong about you," she said. "I didn't think you knew what you were doing, but you did."

"That's how I got to where I am today, Ms. Veretennikov," Big D said.

"Yeah, well," Narnia said, shrugging. "Hasta la vista, chiefy."

With that, final thought, Narnia left. Big D just shook his head, and sighed.

"I don't think I'll ever understand that woman," he said.

"Yeah, me neither," Fluey said. "And I don't think I'll understand that sister-in-law of hers, either!"

"That's for sure," Coiley said. "Come on, fellas. Let's head out. Multi and I have a _lot_ of explaining to do to our parents about this!"

"You guys go on ahead," Fluey said. "I'll see you guys later."

Multi and Coiley nodded, and the boys left, along with Skittles. Once they were gone, Fluey flopped down on the couch, with Panther in his lap.

"Man, I'm exhausted," he said.

"I don't blame you," Phyllis said, as she scratched Panther behind the ears. "Come on, if you can manage to drag yourself up. We might as well go to the pet store and get some supplies. We're going to need them."

"Yeah, we sure will," Fluey said, standing up. He started to follow his sister out of the building, but he stopped for a minute, and looked at the black cat.

"Welcome to the team, Panther," he said. Panther meowed, rubbed his head against Fluey's chin, and purred contently.

The End


End file.
